High court to Centre, state: Submit plans to check monkey menace

PRAYAGRAJ: On a PIL highlighting monkey menace in UP the Allahabad high court on Tuesday issued notices to Animal Welfare Board of India , Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, UP govt and others on the rising population of monkeys, increasing man-monkey conflict, hunger and loss of food to monkeys, their starvation and cruel/inhuman conditions the monkeys are living in.

The court has directed the central and state governments and its instrumentalities to explain by July 10 as to what are the steps in place to deal with monkey-menace and what action plan is proposed in that regard.

Apart from the above authorities, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Arun Bhansali and Justice Kshitij Shailendra also issued notices to the UP state animal welfare board, Ghaziabad district magistrate, Ghaziabad nagar nigam, nagar palika parishads of Loni, Modi Nagar, Murad Nagar, Khoda Makanpur, society for prevention of cruelty to animals and Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA).

The petition sought directions for preparing an urgent action plan, adequate infirmaries, veterinary care centres, adequate transport/rescue vans, relocation to forest areas, adequate provisions of food and setting up a 24X7 grievance helpline portal.

Appearing for the petitioners, their counsel Akash Vashishtha and Pawan Kumar Tiwari told the court that the severity of the issue had almost reached the vertex, with every quarter of the public, including the elderly, women & children, were affected by a large population of monkeys.