A lawyer at the Supreme Court attacked by monkeys within the court premises. Seeking immediate help, she rushed to the court’s first aid clinic, only to find that it was under renovation and lacked essential medicines.
A lawyer, Advocate S Selvakumari, was attacked by a group of monkeys while entering the Supreme Court campus, leaving her injured and traumatized. The incident occurred near Gate No. G, located beside the top court museum, when one of the monkeys bit her on the right thigh.
In an attempt to get medical attention, Selvakumari rushed to the first aid clinic within the Supreme Court. However, she found the dispensary was under renovation.
Selvakumari recounted,
“I tried to enter the Supreme Court, and one of the monkeys bit my thigh. There was no one to help me outside the gate area. No one was stationed there. When I rushed to the Supreme Court dispensary, there was renovation work going on,”
Her friends then took her to the polyclinic near the Registrar’s court, but to their dismay, they found that no medicines were available there either.
She explained,
“There were some doctors in the polyclinic… they only cleaned up the wound. But there were no first aid medicines. Nothing at all. I was just asked to go to Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital,”
Following this, she went to the Delhi High Court dispensary, where she received a tetanus injection.
A permanent member of the Supreme Court Bar Association Selvakumari said,
“After that, I went to RML hospital and got another three injections. Then, another two injections today. Now, I’m experiencing reactions on my body, with a lot of fever and mental trauma. They should at least have basic medicines available. There was no one at the gate to ward off the monkeys or to prevent such incidents,”,
This incident is not the first of its kind. In 2022, the Supreme Court issued an official tender to hire personnel to “scare” off monkeys that were trespassing into judges’ bungalows.
The tender stated,
“The approximate number of bungalows is 35 to 40, situated within a radius of three to four kilometers from the Supreme Court of India, and monkey scarers will be deployed as per the requirements or as and when required.”
Additionally, in 2023, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed before the Delhi High Court, seeking the establishment of a committee to ensure the implementation of earlier directions issued by a bench in 2007 to curb the ‘monkey menace’ in the national capital.