NEW DELHI: In a plea raising the issue of the declining number of Vultures in India, a critically endangered bird species, the Delhi High Court Friday granted more time to the central government to reply. Granting further time to the Centre to reply in the matter, a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad posted it for July 25.
The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) contended that veterinary non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like Aceclofenac, Nimesulide, Ketoprofen etc are harmful to Vultures, but no serious efforts and steps have been taken for their safety.
The court took note that the population of vultures has declined by more than 97 per cent because of the veterinary use of NSAIDs. Last year, the high court directed the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) to take proper steps for banning the purported drugs.
The petitioner Gaurav Kumar Bansal alleged that the Centre is ignoring its own comments which were made in various committees at the National and International levels, and it is not banning the drugs. He sought the respondents to check the toxicity of NSAIDs available in the market and if found toxic, ban the manufacturing, distribution, retail formulation, injectable formulation and use of bolus of the same by way of evoking Section 26A of the Indian Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
It was submitted that even the Minister of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had publicly stated that due to the sharp decline in the vulture population, its population had come down from 40 million to just 19,000 in a span of over three decades.
“It is clear from the statement of the Minister that in the last 30 years around 4 crores vultures have died which means that around 13 Lakh vultures lost their lives every year, which further implies that India is witnessing around 1 lakh mortality of vultures every month because of toxic drugs”, the petitioner said.
Notably, the population of three of the nine Indian species of vultures — the white-rumped, the long-billed, and the slender-billed — have crashed by 90 per cent in the mid-1990s. The birds are now listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN, the highest threat category ahead of extinction.