HOSPITALITY ASSOCIATION OF MUDUMALAI versus IN DEFENCE OF ENVIRONMENT AND ANIMALS AND ORS. ETC.

Citation: [2020] 10 S.C.R. 273 · Decided: 14-10-2020 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S.A. BOBDE · Disposal: Disposed off

Cited by 3 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

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[2020] 10 S.C.R. 273
273
HOSPITALITY ASSOCIATION OF MUDUMALAI
v.
IN DEFENCE OF ENVIRONMENT AND
ANIMALS AND ORS. ETC.
(Civil Appeal No. 3438-3439 of 2020)
OCTOBER 14, 2020
[S. A BOBDE, CJI, S. ABDUL NAZEER AND
SANJIV KHANNA, JJ.]
Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972– Elephant Corridor notified
in Sigur Plateau of Nilgiris District – Resort owners/other private
land owners directed to vacate the lands falling within the notified
elephant corridor – Notification challenged – Upheld by High Court
– On appeal, held: State Government empowered to take measures
to protect forests and wildlife falling within its territory in light of
Entries 17A, 17B in the concurrent list and its power under the
Wildlife Act – State Government empowered to protect the habitats
situated on the appellants’ land by notifying an elephant corridor
thereupon – Environmental Law – Constitution of India – Concurrent
List- Entries 17A, 17B.
Environmental Law – Precautionary Principle – Held:
Precautionary Principle makes it mandatory for the State
Government to anticipate, prevent and attack the causes of
environmental degradation.
Disposing of the appeals, the Court
HELD: 1.1 The Wildlife Trust of India terms elephants as
a “keystone species” because their nomadic behavior is
immensely important to the environment. Herds of roaming
elephants play several important roles in the ecosystem:
(i) Landscape architects: Elephants create clearings in the
forest as they move about, preventing the overgrowth of certain
plant species and allowing space for the regeneration of others,
which in turn provide sustenance to other herbivorous animals.
(ii) Seed dispersal: Elephants eat plants, fruits and seeds,
releasing the seeds when they defecate in other places as they
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SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[2020] 10 S.C.R.
travel. This allows for the distribution of various plant species,
which benefits biodiversity.
(iii) Nutrition: Elephant dung provides nourishment to
plants and animals and acts as a breeding ground for insects.
(iv) Food chain: Apex predators like tigers will sometimes
hunt young elephants. Further, elephant carcasses provide food
for other animals.
(v) The umbrella effect: By preserving a large area for
elephants to roam freely, one provides a suitable habitat for many
other animal and plant species of an ecosystem.
Elephant corridors allow elephants to continue their
nomadic mode of survival, despite shrinking forest cover, by
facilitating travel between distinct forest habitats. Corridors are
narrow and linear patches of forest which establish and facilitate
connectivity across habitats. In the context of today’s world,
where habitat fragmentation has become increasingly common,
these corridors play a crucial role in sustaining wildlife by reducing
the impact of habitat isolations. In their absence, elephants would
be unable to move freely, which would in turn affect many other
animal species and the ecosystem balance of several wild habitats
would be unalterably upset. It would also eventually lead to the
local extinction of elephants, a species which is widely revered
in our country and across the world. To secure wild elephants’
future, it is essential that their uninterrupted movement between
different forest habitats is ensured. For this, elephant corridors
must be protected. [Para 34][292-A-G]
1.2 Legal intervention in preservation of these corridors
has been necessitated because wildlife corridors are threatened
by various social, economic and anthropogenic factors, as noted
above. Commercial activities such as running of private resorts
and construction of new buildings with barbed and electric fences
within elephant corridors pose a serious threat of fragmentation
and destruction of habitats. The long-term survival of the species
depends on maintaining viable habitats and connecting corridors
which maintain variance in the species’ gene pool and avoid other
risks associated with habitat fragmentation and isolation of
species. Overtime, several environmental legislations including
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the Indian Forest Act, 1927 and the Wildlife Act have been enacted
to provide for the protection of forests and wild animals, with a
view to ensuring ecological balance and preserving natural
habitats including such corridors. The corridor in the Sigur Plateau
of Tamil Nadu connects the Western and the Eastern Ghats and
sustains elephant populations and their genetic diversity. The
Sigur Plateau has the Nilgiri Hil

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