Taking seriously the problem of monkeys, the Allahabad High Court has filed an affidavit to the State Principal Secretary (Urban Development) and asked to explain what steps have been taken to deal with this problem or steps are proposed.
A bench of Chief Justice Arun Bhansali and Justice Kshitij Shailendra said that every department is putting its responsibility on another department to prevent confrontation between humans and monkeys.
The court saw inactivity in the state government in forming an action plan to control the problem of monkeys in response to a letter of 20 August 2025, District Magistrate of Ghaziabad.
Hearing the PIL filed by social activist Vineet Sharma on September 19, the court said that since all the municipal corporations come under the Urban Development Department, it would be appropriate to make this department a party. Deciding the next hearing date of the case, 31 October, the court said in its order, “Necessary things will be done before the next date.”
During the hearing, the petitioner’s counsel said that while people are suffering on the one hand, on the other hand, due to lack of food, monkeys are suffering from starvation and this situation is in almost all the districts of the state.
The court was also shown coverage of news of violent monkey attacks in Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Sitapur, Bareilly and Agra and reported that the issue is not limited to one or two districts, but is present in the entire state.
He said that after the monkeys are excluded from the Wildlife Protection Act, now they come under the provisions of the Municipal Corporation Act and the municipal corporations have the responsibility to reduce the disturbance of monkeys and ensure the safety of the people.
The petition also raised other issues including increasing population of monkeys, increasing conflicts of monkeys with humans, lack of food to monkeys, their starvation. The petition has also demanded immediate action plan, adequate care and transport of monkeys, arrangements to send them to the forest and issuing instructions to set up a complaint helpline portal.