CUTTACK: A week after registering a case suo motu on the death of three elephants due to electrocution, the Orissa High Court on Tuesday said it will take up on priority the issue of notifying elephant corridors in the state.
The matter of notifying the corridors, which was ordered by the National Green Tribunal in 2021, has been hanging fire due to an interim stay issued by the high court on state government’s petition.
On April 6, 2023, the east zone bench of NGT had warned the principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) and chief wildlife warden, Odisha, that it will proceed under Section 26 of the NGT Act, 2010, if the elephant corridors in the state were not notified within a month.
The ultimatum to the state government was issued on a petition filed by Wildlife Society of Odisha (WSO) for execution of the tribunal’s August 17, 2021 direction to notify the 14 elephant corridors as earlier identified by the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation (ANCF).
However, the state government challenged it in the high court, which on May 4, 2023 restrained the NGT from going ahead with the proceedings. Later, when WSO sought vacating of the stay, the high court on May 9, 2023 said it would consider the recall petition after receiving a response to it from the state government.
Though the court issued notice to the state government on that day, the petition was last listed for hearing on August 8, 2023. However, no progress has been recorded in the matter since.
On Tuesday, when the division bench of Chief Justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh and Justice Savitri Ratho was hearing the elephant death case, its attention was drawn by WSO counsel Sankar Prasad Pani to the stay order. He also pointed out WSO’s petition for vacating of the interim stay order.
Taking note of it, the bench made it clear that in the next date, after two weeks, it will take up as the first case the state government’s petition in which the interim stay order on NGT proceedings on elephant corridors was passed.