The Delhi High Court on Thursday restrained the State’s Forest Department from conducting a walkathon and cyclotron in the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, noting that the events may not only the lives of participants, but also the animals in the sanctuary.

Justice Jasmeet Singh noted that the activities proposed to be held in the reserved and notified forest land on December 9 and 10 “cannot be permitted” in the absence of any arrangement for safety and security.

“The conducting of such an event has all the trappings of it turning out to be a misadventure, as the location of the animals is unknown, their area of movement is not isolated, the certainty about the number and species [of animals] has been left to guesswork, and there appears to be no plan in place,” he observed.

The court added that safaris and other entries into sanctuaries must be delicately worked out and intrinsically planned in order to ensure a balance between eco-tourism and protection of wildlife.

The Forest Department is expecting at least a hundred participants for the event, although the court remarked that nothing on record showed any arrangement for the same. “There is no plan for waste disposal, including human waste. There is no arrangement for the prevention of loud noise created by such a mass event,” the court added.

The court also pointed out that permission for the event had been granted in a “mechanical manner”, with no analysis of the threat perception to the participants or the animals in the sanctuary. “The locations frequented by leopards, jackals, hyenas, and pythons have not been discussed by the Forest Department while granting permission,” Justice Singh said.

The court passed the order during an ongoing hearing seeking removal of illegal encroachments into the reserved and notified forest land on the Aravalli hill range in village Asola.

The Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, which has been restricted to 32 square kilometres due to heavy encroachment into forest land on the Aravalli range in the Southern Ridge, is home to 250 species of birds and 25 species of mammals, including leopards, striped hyenas, nilgai, golden jackals, and jungle cats.

Furthermore, a leopard was spotted in south Delhi’s Sainik Farms last week, and is yet to be caught.

“According to media reports, this leopard came from the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, and has attacked three people. This is worrisome,” said Justice Singh.