‘Elephants can’t be displaced at will’: Karnataka High Court says no to land acquisition

The bench’s August 29 order went ahead to observe that while the object of land acquisition should be for the greater purpose of public good and lands may be acquired for various projects covered under the scope of ‘public purpose.’ “However, in our view, no public purpose can supersede the object of environmental and ecological conservation”, it noted.

While quashing the land acquisition proceedings, the high court called the residential project “misconceived” and capable of causing “irreversible ecological, environmental and wildlife related consequences” because it was situated within the Bannerghatta National Park Eco-Sensitive Zone, the high court observed that “housing is not the only requirement for human existence. Ecology, wildlife, forest, water streams etc., all are equally important for human existence”.

Justices D K Singh and H Shanthi Bhushan held that the project by the Karnataka Housing Board was misconceived and capable of irreversible ecological consequences.

The Karnataka Housing Board was subsequently granted limited environment clearance by the state authorities. On January 13, the high court allowed the acquisition proceedings for the agricultural lands after an affidavit was filed by the Kerala Housing Board that the proceedings would be done after getting relevant environmental clearances and quashed the acquisition proceedings done for the lands that were converted for non-agricultural purposes.

Aggrieved by the high court’s order, both the landowners and the Karnataka Housing Board filed appeals against the order. Subsequently, the Karnataka Housing Board applied for and got the environmental clearance to the extent of agricultural lands.

‘Irreversible ecological consequences’

Emphasising the significance of Bannerghatta National Park, the judgement recorded that the national park supported a “diverse range of fauna, including Asian elephants, leopards, Indian gaur, sambar, chital, sloth bear, dhole, wild pig, barking deer, mouse deer, striped hyena, jungle cat, pangolin, slender loris, porcupine and other primate species. Its avifauna includes peafowl, grey junglefowl, raptors, woodpeckers, parakeets, cuckoos, orioles and drongos, among other species,” and that park was of particular significance as an elephant habitat and movement landscape as it was a part of the Mysore Elephant Reserve.

Noting that the project would have seriously affected the Karadikkal-Madeshwara Elephant Corridor, and that the Forest Department of Karnataka had already flagged the possibility of increased human-wildlife conflict because of the residential project, the high court stated that he housing project had been approved ignoring all the concerns.

The bench highlighted that elephant corridors “constitute critical ecological linkages and are indispensable to the long-term conservation of both elephants and the ecosystems upon which they depend.” The ruling also noted that protecting these corridors extends beyond species-specific conservation to serve “the broader objective of maintaining landscape connectivity, ecological resilience and the integrity of interconnected forest ecosystems.”

The high court was of the view that the land acquisition proceedings were nothing but “an exercise without undertaking the relevant considerations such as scientific study of environment impact assessment, socio-ecological factors etc”.