Kathmandu, September 19
The Supreme Court has issued an interim order in the name of the government to immediately stop the illegal cross-border sale of Nepal’s captive elephants into India.
A single bench of Justice Kumar Regmi issued the order last week in response to a writ petition filed by advocate Sanjay Adhikari among others.
Adhikari, a public interest litigator, had moved the court after tourism entrepreneurs of Sauraha outside the Chitwan National Park of Nepal began selling their captive elephants which they would otherwise use to give a ride to the tourists around community forests outside the national park citing the lack of visitors during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The sale was clearly against the Act to Regulate and Control International Trade in Endangered Wild Fauna and Flora, and its regulations.
The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers among other government authorities have been made defendants in the case.
