The Supreme Court questioned the West Bengal government Monday over the use of fire torches to drive away elephants and directed the state to place before it the names and designations of the forest officials, who would be held responsible for any accident due to this.
The top court observed that the use of fire or fire torches "cannot be the only answer" for driving away elephants in West Bengal and directed that the tender floated by the state government for procuring burnt mobil oil for distribution among villagers be not processed in the meanwhile.
When the counsel appearing for West Bengal said using fire torches was the only way to avoid man-animal conflicts, a bench of justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said, "You will kill all the animals and then there will be no man-animal conflict."
When the issue of use of fire in West Bengal was raked up, Nadkarni said, "Fireballs are not to be used."