Chennai, April 11 (2022) The Madras High Court will fast lane the case related to the death of elephants after being run over by speeding trains in Podanur-Walayar belt near Madhukkara in Tamil Nadu.
The move follows an onsite inspection of the two railway lines A and B by a team of judicial officers to verify the reason behind the deaths and work out a solution to prevent such incidents.
Justices V Bharathidasan, R. Subramanian, N. Satishkumar, M. Dhandapani, R. Pongiappan, and G.K. Ilanthirayian travelled in a tower wagon on both the lines A and B as most of the elephant deaths had occurred after being hit by speeding trains.
Recently, three elephants, including a calf, were killed by Mangalore-Chennai express leading to a major confrontation between the forest officials of Tamil Nadu and the Southern Railway, Palakkad division.
Notably, 11 elephants have lost their lives after being hit by speeding trains since 2008.
The counsel for the Southern Railway, P.T Ramkumar, had informed the Madras High Court bench of Justices V. Bharathidasan and N. Sathishkumar on March 17 that it was not possible for trains to reduce their speed under 45 km per hour.
He also informed the court during the hearing that the speed reduction below the least permissible limit would lead to endangering the safety of passengers on the train. He had also informed the court that it was not possible or feasible to divert the trains during night hours.
The court had then directed the Southern Railways and the Tamil Nadu forest department that the judges would directly travel in a train between Podanur and Walayar and directly assess the situation.
Southern Railway officials informed the judges that ramps could be constructed to felicitate the movement of elephants and told the judicial officers that Artificial intelligence could be deployed to provide early warning to loco pilots on the presence of wild elephants on the sides of tracks.
The officials also informed the court that electric fencing is also possible to prevent the elephants from crossing the railway tracks during the night.
Senior forest officials of the Tamil Nadu government, including Principal secretary environment and forests Supriya Sahu and Chief Wild Life Warden, Tamil Nadu, Syed Muzzamil Abbas accompanied the judges along with Southern Railway officers.
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