The Supreme Court has stayed a decision of the Kerala High Court. This decision of the Supreme Court was about the elephant procession within the temples of Kerala and the ban in their religious rituals. The Supreme Court has said that the use of elephants in temples is part of our culture and the High Court order has the ability to stop it.
Part of elephant culture: Supreme Court
On Monday (March 17, 2025), Justice BV Nagratna and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma in the Supreme Court Stoppage Applied The Supreme Court has given this order on the petition of an NGO named Gaz Seva Samiti. The Kerala High Court gave this order in January 2025 regarding the use of elephants in temples.
The Gaja Seva Samiti, who filed this petition, has alleged that the alleged activists seeking to stop elephants want to stop the supremely older of Hindus more than 2 thousand years old. The Gaja Seva Samiti alleged that these activists work with the help of foreign funds and are stopping the traditions of Hindus.
Gaja Seva Samiti said that elephants are holy within Kerala Agreed Goes and is worshiped as a symbol of power. The Gaja Seva Samiti alleged that he wanted to stop using them completely in temples with alleged animal rights.
Now the Supreme Court has issued notices in this case. Significantly, in the order given in January 2025, the Kerala High Court had many things about the use of elephants in the festivals of the temple. The High Court had said that the temples and Dewasam elephants would not be able to get a procession not registered before 31 May, 2022.
High court had imposed restrictions
Kerala High Court earlier on the petition of ‘Animal Rights’ workers in November 2024 Hearing While doing, many restrictions were imposed on the use of elephants in the temple. The High Court had said that elephants used in temples spend life like a ‘Nazi Camp’.
The Kerala High Court had ordered that elephants would not run more than 30 kilometers in any festival. Also in a day 125 km Will not be taken away from far away. Along with this, the High Court had ordered that they would not be kept in any vehicle for more than 6 hours.
The Kerala High Court had also banned the procession of elephants on public road between 9 am and 5 pm, there were restrictions on using them at night. During the procession, a distance of 3 meters was to be kept among the elephants. The High Court even said that there is no such religious tradition in which the use of elephants is mandatory.
After this order, large temples in Kerala had said that now the use of elephants would be almost impossible. Many temples had managed robot elephants after this order. This order was stopped by the Supreme Court in December 2024. However, even after this, in January 2025, the High Court gave a similar order. The Supreme Court has now stayed.
