Supreme Court Hearing – Case No. SC/SPL/LA-243-20 ( Wilpattu Appeal)
and
Case Before Colombo Chief Magistrate – Case No. B 23073/01/15 (Releasing Elephants back to their Captivators)
* Case No. SC-243-20 (Wilpattu Appeal) is adjourned till 3rd February, 2022.
* Case No. B 23073/01/15 (Case related to elephants filed by the CID) is adjourned until 3rdDecember 2021.
When the Wilpattu appeal case was taken up before the Supreme Court today (22.10.2021) the petitioner, Center for Environmental Justice requested the court to expedite the hearing of the appeal. However, due to the inability of the lawyers representing the other parties to give short dates, the proceedings of the case was adjourned till 3rdFebruary 2021.
The case filed by CID regarding the release of elephants was also heard today (22.10.2011) before the Magistrate’s Court . The case was taken up through a Motion to express Attorney General’s recommendation to hand over 5 elephants numbered 223, 230, 331, 346 and 148 to their so-called “previous owners”. Although the Attorney General did not appear in court on this occasion, the CID submitted a document that contains recommendations and suggestions made by the Attorney General. However Hon. Magistrate declared that “suggestions” would not be accepted by the Magistrate’s Court and requested the CIDto proceed with any specific requests which they may have for judgment, on which occasion the Magistrate was requested to conclude the proceedings regarding the captured elephants and hand them back over to their “previous owners”.
Senior Counselor Mr. Ravindranath Dabare, Chairman of the Center for Environmental Justice, objected to the request, saying “Elephants” are public property and therefore should not be handed over to back their captivators, so-called “original custodians”.
After considering all the facts, the court ordered the case to be called back on 3rd December 2021..
For more information, please contact
Mr. Ravindranath Dabare,(AAL) – Chairperson of CEJ (077307850)
Ms. Nilmal Wickramasinghe (AAL) – Directoress CEJ – (077 3930820).
Center for Environmental Justice
