Upon a proposal by the State Government that a Joint Task
Force (JTF) comprising officials from the forest and police
departments would soon be formed to come up with a concrete plan to
prevent unnatural elephant deaths in the State, the Orissa High Court
has fixed a one-month deadline for the formation of the proposed JTF.
Once again expressing anguish over the increase in
elephant deaths and the incumbent Special Task Force (STF) assigned is
not delivering the desired results in deterring the offenders from
their crimes, a Division Bench headed by Chief Justice S Muralidhar on
Thursday asked the Government to set up the JTF within one
month.
As directed by the court on August 8, the State DGP
submitted an affidavit in the court stating that the Government is seriously working on establishing the JTF with officers of different ranks from forest and police departments. The JTF would ensure that the law enforcement machinery is activated to enforce the Wildlife (Protection) Act.
Besides, the Wildlife PCCF too had submitted an affidavit detailing the status of each case of elephant death recently. The court, however, was unhappy going through the affidavit, observing that in most cases, the charge-sheets have not been filed within the stipulated time and adjourned the matter to beheard again next month.