HC rejects plea against illegal resorts in STR

Chennai: The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking a direction to the State government to remove the illegal resorts functioning in the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve area in Erode district.

The first bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the direction on rejecting the petition filed by advocate and wildlife activist SP Chockalingam.

“The petitioner failed to array the illegal resorts as the respondents. Therefore, no direction could be passed without arraying the resorts as respondents,” the bench observed in its order.

The petitioner submitted that he got information through RTI Act that about 51 resorts are functioning in the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve region and they did not get any permission from the National Board for Wildlife (NBW) and Hill Areas Conservation Authority (HACA).

“The resorts functioning in the STR are causing threat to the lives of wild animals, and making an adverse effect on the forests and environment in hill stations. Therefore, the State government should take steps to seal all the illegal resorts in the tiger reserve,” the petitioner argued.