20th Jan., 2019

A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court on January 18 ordered public sector undertaking Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) to demolish whatever is left of a controversial 2.2-kilometre boundary wall topped with barbed wire that lies in the middle of an elephant corridor in the proposed Deopahar Reserve Forest, barely a few kilometres from the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve in Assam's Golaghat district.

The bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah was listening to the appeal of NRL against the order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) dated August 3, 2018, in which the tribunal had refused to review its order of demolition passed in the year 2016.

"Elephants have the first right on the forest. Elephants do not go to office in a designated route. We cannot encroach upon the elephant’s area," Justice Chandrachud observed after NRL told the court that it had demolished about 1 hectare (a 289 metre stretch) of the wall on March 13, 2018 and there was no need to demolish the entire wall as it was not a part of the Deopahar Reserve Forest.

NRL had built the wall in 2011, for its housing estate. The township also boasts of a golf course among other things. But it lies in the path of an elephant corridor. In May 2015, a male elephant died of haemorrhage after bashing its head against the wall in an effort to break it. Videos have also captured elephant herds trying to frantically make sense of how to go past the barrier before dejectedly turning back.

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