State recorded only one incident of poaching each in last two years: Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma

A congregation of many distinguished jurists and resource persons gathered together at World Heritage Site, Kaziranga National Park, on October 29 for a one of a kind national judicial seminar organised by Gauhati High Court in collaboration with Assam government. 

The seminar saw the attendance of distinguished officials, senior judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, providing the dignitaries with first-hand knowledge of Assam and issues hitting the state.

The seminar, which has been organised by the Gauhati High Court carrying forward the theme of Environment and sustainable development, role of Judiciary and digitisation of Indian Judiciary and its impact in dispensation of justice, was inaugurated by Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiu in presence of judges of the Supreme Court, Chief Justices of various high courts including Justice RM Chhaya of the Gauhati High Court, and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Speaking on the occasion, Assam Chief Minister said, “Calling for environmental conscious lifestyle a mass movement, as visualised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at COP26 Summit, Glasgow, India made five commitments, a grand vision to deal with the challenges of climate change”.

Enumerating the laws with respect to protection of environment and wildlife, while lauding the efforts of the forest department as well as the government in bringing down the numbers of poaching in the last two years as one each, CM Sarma said, “Article 48 and Article 48 (A) incorporates protection of nature and conservation of country’s natural resources. Article 48 envisages protection of breeds of cattle, prohibiting slaughter of cows, while Article 48 (A), encourages the state to improve the environment and to safeguard forest and wildlife of the country."

“Compassion for all living creatures should be the ultimate goal as envisioned by PM Modi. The parliament passes numerous anti-pollution laws to protect the environment. Sensible planning, balanced deployment of Green technology would give us realistic solutions to save the environment. The state government has taken number of steps for environmental and wildlife protection. It has contemplated to make the natural habitats free from encroachment to minimise human-elephant conflict. The government has also decided to increase the forest cover of Assam from 36 percent to 38 percent by way of large scale plantation. It is quite praiseworthy that the number of poaching cases has reduced to one each in the last two years as compared to 50 cases which used to take place earlier,” added CM Sarma.

With respect to digitisation of Indian Judiciary CM Sarma said, “How the digitisation of judiciary should help and reach the last man in the society, should be the core factor which the judiciary system is working upon. Second, the digital effort should result in multiple islands where one system doesn’t talk to the other. Digitisation of Judiciary enabled appropriate technologies should be inter-operable so that maximum benefits can be harnessed for the benefit of the entire system. As the digitisation of Judiciary shouldn’t be seen in isolation, the use of digital system across all pillars of the democracy will ultimately help early disposal of case that would ultimately benefit the entire system.”

Hrishikesh Roy, Senior Judge at Supreme Court while sharing his thoughts on the global challenges being faced with respect to environment protection said, “Judiciary too needs to play its purital role promoting sustainable development while minimising the irreversible damages to the natural environment. On the other hand, technology has tremendous impact in every human life in the dawn of civilisation. Indian Judiciary’s digitisation has been appreciated and achieved recognition with respect to dispensing of justice by maximising its efficiency,”
The senior judge salutes the forest warriors for their relentless efforts in acting against poachers and helping the exotic animals stay protected within the forest area, “Forest guards dispensing their duties with distinction. Number of rhinoceros killed in earlier years have been higher as compared 2021, 2022 census, which has yielded results in present times,” added senior judge Hrishikesh Roy.