High court stays state rule that lets farmers kill Nilgais

MUMBAI : The Bombay HC last week stayed a state government order granting deemed permission to hunt certain wild animals, an order that purportedly resulted in the

MUMBAI : The Bombay HC last week stayed a state government order granting deemed permission to hunt certain wild animals, an order that purportedly resulted in the killing of 300 Nilgai or blue bulls in the Satara district in the past six months.

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“This deeming clause is too dangerous,” said a division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and justice MS Sonak, commenting on clause 2 of a Government Resolution issued on July 22, 2015. The resolution, issued by the Forests Department, was to purportedly lay down the procedure to grant temporary licenses to agriculturists to hunt wild animals like the Nilgai and wild boars, to save their crops. The clause said an aggrieved famer can submit a plea to the Range Forest Officer and allowed deemed permission to kill the animals if the plea was not specifically rejected or the rejection was not communicated within 24 hours of submitting it.

Pune resident Jamshid Dalal, who also has agricultural lands in Mahabaleshwar, told the court how such permissions were leading to the indiscriminate killing of wild animals. In a a public interest litigation, Dalal said the clause was directly against the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. His PIL pointed out section 11 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, allowed the Chief Wildlife Warden to grant permission to hunt certain categories of wild animals if they caused a loss to agricultural crops. The section mandates that only the Chief Wildlife Warden can grant permission and that too after recording reasons. This means the grant of deemed permissions, by a much junior officer like a Range Forest Officer, was an arbitrary exercise. State pleader Abhinandan Vagyani said the resolution provides for a procedure to allow hunting where wild animals cause loss to crops, and pleas were sent to RFO as he is the highest wildlife officer available .