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The Supreme Court has directed the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and other agencies not to shift around 600 deer from Delhi’s AN Jha Deer Park to forest zones in Rajasthan.
The Bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan passed the interim order on Wednesday on a petition filed by New Delhi Nature Society.
While restraining the respondents from shifting the existing deer out of the Deer Park at Hauz Khas, New Delhi, the top court of the country ordered them to take proper care of the animals.
The petitioner claimed that around 600 deer in Hauz Khas were at risk of being relocated without veterinary checks,
proper habitat assessments, or safeguards for vulnerable groups like pregnant deer and fawns.
It further submitted that the relocation amounted to turning domesticated animals into prey.
Three batches of deer have already been relocated hastily from Delhi’s Hauz Khas Deer Park to predator-heavy sanctuaries in Rajasthan, in violation of wildlife protection laws, it added.
The petitioner apprised the Bench that the decision to relocate the deer from Hauz Khas followed the Central Zoo Authority’s (CZA) order to withdraw AN Jha Deer Park’s recognition as a ‘mini-zoo’.
It, however, alleged that the DDA and Forest Department have treated the CZA’s withdrawal of recognition as a green signal to dismantle the park altogether, without fulfilling legal requirements under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
The organisation further disapproved the use of boma method for capturing and transporting deer, which involved a funnel-like structure to corral animals.
It claimed that the method offered no scope for separating pregnant or nursing females, antlered males, juveniles, or sick animals.
Filed through Advocate Rukhsana Choudhury, the plea invoked the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 on the grounds that using captive deer as prey amounted to cruelty, especially since Section 11 prohibited confining any animal in a manner that made it an object of prey.
The organisation claimed that once released in Rajasthan, the deer, accustomed to life in a semi-urban, predator-free park, would be exposed to natural predators like leopards, for which they have no survival instincts.
It alleged that the purpose of the relocation was not conservation, but to supplement the prey base in predator-heavy sanctuaries like Sariska and Kumbhalgarh, which have seen declining populations of animals like chital and nilgai.
The petitioner cited an official communication in this regard from the Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan requesting 550 deer from Delhi to “enhance the prey base” for large carnivores.
The plea contended that there was no ecological justification for moving the deer hundreds of kilometres to areas with established predator populations.
Drawn by Advocate Amita Singh, the plea cited internal correspondence to claim that DDA officials discussed removing the deer even before approvals were in place.
As per the petitioner, the translocation was part of a plan to repurpose or erase the deer park, an ecologically significant space in the capital.
The matter was initially listed before the Delhi High Court, which in 2023 stayed the deer relocation and suggested that at least 50 deer be retained in Hauz Khas.
However, the matter was later closed in July 2024 after the DDA said that it would retain 24 deer inHauz Khas and relocate the rest after getting approval.
The petitioner alleged that the July 2024 verdict was passed without giving the petitioner an opportunity to examine the DDA’s affidavit, and that their then-lawyer had accepted the DDA’s affidavit without seeking instructions from the petitioner.
A plea was also filed to recall the July 2024 order, which was dismissed by the High Court in January 2025, prompting the petitioner-society to move the Supreme Court.
This article first appeared on India Legal
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