Have You Not Learnt From Covid, High Court Asks Tamil Nadu Government

"Have you not learnt a lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic? Has it not advised you not to fight with nature?" the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy asked.

The Madras High Court on Tuesday asked the Tamil Nadu government if it had not learnt a lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic that one cannot fight against nature. "Have you not learnt a lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic? Has it not advised you not to fight with nature?" the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy asked. These were the questions posed by the court when a public interest writ petition from a devotee of Sriranganatha Swamy temple in Srirangam in Tiruchirappalli, praying for a direction to the state to file a report on the protection of shrine elephants, came up for hearing on Tuesday. As per Rule 4(4) of the Tamil Nadu Captive Elephants (Management and Maintenance) Rules, an elephant must be maintained by the same mahout and cavady (mahout's assistant) during its entire lifespan.