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Synopsis

The Supreme Court today refused to act an Intervention Application (IA) filed in the writ petition concerning captive elephants in the State of Kerala.

While doing so, a CJI DY Chandrachud led bench opined that High Court's were better suited to deal with such issues.

Senior Advocate CU Singh made submissions on the application stating that there was an increase in mortality of elephants in the state of Kerala.

"They're not doing the postmortem because they don't want to identify malnutrition as the cause. 131 captive elephants in Kerala had died between February-September 2022. Majority of them were under 50 years", Court was further told.

To this the CJI said, "You have High Courts, they know the ground reality...this is a matter involving local feelings, the judges know the emotions involved with these animals..let them deal with this.."

The bench also comprising Justices Pardiwala and Manoj Misra added that Supreme Court cannot deal with IAs all the time.

"This is the Supreme Court of India, tomorrow there will be an IA from Maharashtra, then from Tamil Nadu..", the bench said.

Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, present for the Writ Petitioner, went on to inform the bench that petition had been pending since 2014.

Top Court accordingly directed for the writ petition to be listed for final disposal in first week of December.

Case Title: Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre And Ors. vs. Union Of India