In a relief to organizers and fans of Kerala’s famous Thrissur Pooram, the Supreme Court on Thursday effectively stayed the state high court’s directive on elephant parading.
A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and N Koteswar Singh ruled that any direction issued by the High Court contrary to the Kerala Captive Elephants (Management and Maintenance) Rules, 2012 would be stayed. Justice Nagarathana said the Kerala High Court directive mandating a three-metre distance between elephants parading during the festival and prohibiting the use of processions on public roads between 9am and 5pm was “impractical”.
Appearing for the Thiruvambadi and Paramekkavu Devaswoms, which conduct the Pooram festival, senior advocate Kapil Sibal told the Supreme Court that the Kerala High Court directive would affect the conduct of the temple festival, which has a history of 250 years. He said the festival is part of the UNESCO heritage list and the requirement to maintain a distance of 3 meters is virtually impossible.
Justice Nagarathana said, “If there are so many elephants and devotees are coming, the principle of ‘volenti non fit injuria’ (willing person, it is not wrongful) will apply. They are taking the risk of coming.”
“The learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner contended that January 5 was a festival and it was practically impossible to follow the directions given by the High Court. However, he Kerala Captive Elephants (Management and Maintenance) Rules, 2012 will be strictly followed both in letter and spirit,” the bench said.
Sibal said the organizers have been following every directive of the state government and the recent developments stemmed from the suo moto proceedings initiated by the High Court against animal cruelty due to the dog’s death.
Sibal pointed out that so far there is no case of any devotee being injured and the High Court has not recorded anything in this regard.
Judge Nagarathna stopped the implementation of the instructions of the High Court and reminded that the court should not enter into law making.
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