The Uttarakhand High Court on Monday took suo motu cognisance of the denotification of the Shivalik Elephant Reserve and issued notices to both the Central as well as State governments. The court has given the respondents one month time  to file their counter-affidavits in the matter and has listed the case for further hearing after the winter vacations.

The division bench of acting Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Alok Kumar Verma issued the notice. Uttarakhand's only elephant reserve i.e, the Shivalik Elephant Reserve was notified in 2002 through a government order. However, the state government in November 2020 denotified the reserve for the expansion of Dehradun's Jolly Grant Airport.

About 80 environmental activists had written to the acting chief justice of the high court, claiming that on November 24, 2020, the Uttarakhand state wildlife board decided to scrap the notification on the Shivalik Elephant Reserve for the expansion of Dehradun's Jolly Grant Airport. The letter was treated as a PIL and taken up for hearing by the court.

The Shivalik Elephant Reserve, spread over 5,400 square km covering parts of both Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttarakhand, was notified in 2002 through a government order. The state government has maintained that the denotification of the elephant reserve will pave the way for increased development activities in the area, including the expansion of the airport.

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