Parrots are 'wild animals', rules Bombay High Court; orders Maharashtra govt to compensate farmer for crop damage

Nagpur: The Bombay High Court has ordered the Maharashtra government to compensate a farmer for pomegranate trees damaged by parrots, ruling the birds are "wild animals" under the Wild Life (Protection) Act and the state must reimburse citizens for losses caused by its property.

The Nagpur bench of Justices Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Nivedita Mehta noted that if farmers are not compensated for losses caused by protected species, they might resort to measures that harm wildlife, thus defeating the very purpose of the Act, which explicitly covers parrots.

A copy of the order passed on April 24 was made available on Sunday.

The court passed the order on a petition filed by Mahadeo Dekate (70), a farmer from Hingi village in Wardha district, who claimed that his pomegranate trees were damaged by wild parrots from the nearby wildlife sanctuary in May 2016, and sought compensation for the same.

The court has ordered the government to pay Rs 200 per tree for damages caused to 200 trees.

The state government opposed the plea, claiming that government resolutions issued in the past stated that compensation can be granted only when wild elephants and bison damage fruit-bearing trees.

The court, however, refused to accept this contention, pointing out that the objective of issuing such resolutions was to compensate affected farmers for losses they suffered.

"When such an objective has been expounded, it makes no sense to consider loss caused only by a few species of wild animals and ignore the loss caused by other species of wild animals for the purpose of payment of compensation," it stated.

A person entitled to compensation under statutory provisions cannot be deprived merely because some species are not included in the government resolutions, the court held.

"There is no rationale in saying that only the damage caused by a few species would entitle farmers to get compensation," the court observed, noting that it would be a breach of the equality principle and a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.

The Wild Life Act, being a legislative Act, would prevail over any government resolutions, it held.

It further stated that under the provisions of the 1972 Act, wild animals are declared to be property of the State, and there is no dispute about the fact that parrots are one of them.

"Thus, the law expects every citizen to be a protector of the wild animals and, therefore, it cannot be expected that they should suffer loss caused to them because of wild animals," HC said.

Otherwise, the very purpose of protecting wild animals would be frustrated and affected persons may resort to their own defences to save their crops and fruit-bearing trees, which may harm wild animals.

As per the plea, Dekate lodged complaints with officials from the forest and local agriculture departments, who visited his orchard and noted that around 50 per cent of the fruits were damaged by birds.

Officials, however, expressed their inability to pay compensation, as there was no provision in government resolutions for damages caused by birds like parrots.

The government opposed Dekate's plea, claiming that birds such as parrots are not covered as wild animals.

The petitioner relied on the provisions of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, which stated that a wild animal means any animal found wild in nature and the list of animals named in the Act also includes Alexandrine parakeets and other parakeet species.

Dekate, in his plea, had said he suffered a loss of around Rs 20 lakh.

The high court accepted this contention, noting that the schedule under the Act (giving a list of animals/birds as wild in nature) includes parrots.