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Make MP second home for Gir lions, rules SC
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

Court forms panel The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests to constitute an expert committee for taking “urgent steps” to relocate some of the lions from the Gir National Park and Gir Sanctuary of Gujarat to the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh Gujarat had contended that translocation of the lions in the early 20th century and in 1956, especially to the Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh, was unsuccessful and therefore the present move would not yield much result.

New Delhi, April 15
The Supreme Court today directed Gujarat to share some of its 400 Asiatic lions with Madhya Pradesh as part of the efforts to protect the endangered specie by providing them a “second home.”

A Bench comprising Justices KS Radhakrishnan and CK Prasad asked the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests to constitute an expert committee for taking “urgent steps” to relocate some of the lions from the Gir National Park and Gir Sanctuary of Gujarat to the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh.

The committee would decide the number of lions to be re-introduced in Kuno, the Bench clarified in its judgment in a PIL case.

“Our top priority is to protect Asiatic lions, an endangered species, and to provide them a second home. Various steps have been taken for the last few decades, but nothing has transpired so far. Crores of rupees have been spent by the Centre and the MP Government so far,” the apex court noted.

So far, Gir forest has been the single habitat of the Asiatic lion in the world.

“Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution of India protects not only the human rights but also casts an obligation on human beings” to protect and prevent any specie from becoming extinct and conservation and protection of environment was an inseparable part of right to life, the SC held.

Rejecting Gujarat’s objection to sharing the lions with MP, the Bench said “no state, organisation or person can claim ownership or possession over wild animals in the forest.”

Wildlife experts had underlined the need for long term conservation of Asiatic lions within Gir as well as a “second natural habitat,” the SC noted.

Gujarat had contended that translocation of the lions in the early 20th century and in 1956, especially to the Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh, was unsuccessful and therefore the present move would not yield much result.

Terming this as incorrect, the SC explained that on previous occasions the lions were hunted because they had become cattle lifters thereby causing an acute “lion-man conflict” in the introduced areas which was no longer the situation.

Quoting a report by the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife, the Bench said there were better scientific inputs this time and a full commitment on the part of MP. Therefore, the present relocation was not comparable with earlier efforts.