Central zoo authority granted permission for transfer of crocodiles

The Madras High Court was informed on Monday that the Central Zoo Authority has granted permission for transfer of 1,000 crocodiles from the Crocodile Bank in the city to the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in Gujarat.

When the PIL petition from A Viswanathan (76) of Chintadripet here came up today, the first bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice N Mala was told that 350 crocodiles from Madras Crocodile Bank were already transferred to it and the remaining 650 are yet to be transferred. The Central Zoo Authority had granted permission for the transfer, the bench was told.

The bench posted the matter for further hearing on July 19, after directing the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) to file its counter.

In his petition, Viswanath sought to quash the permission granted by the Tamil government, by the Chief Wild Life Warden and the CZA in New Delhi for the transfer of 1,000 crocodiles from the Crocodile Bank Trust in Mahabalipuram to the Centre in Jamnagar in Gujarat, to operate a mini-zoo.

The interim prayers are to order an investigation into the management and affairs of the Centre in Gujarat by an independent agency like the CBI or CB CID or to constitute a special team and to take action on its report. It also sought to restrain the TN State and the CZA from giving any permission to the Centre in Gujarat for acquiring, purchasing, exchanging or selling any animals from any other zoos in Tamil Nadu, India or abroad.

Among other things, petitioner contended that the approval/recognition to the Centre in Gujarat itself deserves to be quashed for the reason that the same was for setting up only a Mini Zoo. The criteria for a Mini Zoo is that it must have less than 10 hectares, less than 1 lakh visitors in a year, less than 10 species of animals and less than 100 animals. On the other hand the Master Layout filed by the CZA was for an area of 101.2 hectares, 79 species of animals and more than 750 animals, which in fact was a qualifying criteria for a ‘Large Zoo’. Therefore grant of recognition itself is unlawful and deserves to be set aside. All this violated the provisions of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 (as amended to date) and the Recognition of Zoo Rules, petitioner contended.