Activist seeks Corbett tiger poaching probe revival, claims SC was misled
Atul Sati, the activist, filed an application for the vacation of the stay on the probe alleging that crucial facts on which it was ordered were concealed from the Supreme Court
An activist has sought the revival of a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged tiger poaching at Corbett National Park, claiming the Supreme Court was misled into staying the investigation on a Uttarakhand high court order seven years back.
Atul Sati, the activist who is from Uttarakhand, filed an application for the vacation of the stay on November 1. He alleged that crucial facts on which the high court order was based were concealed from the Supreme Court. Sati said they included the findings of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
The Supreme Court issued notice on an appeal by the then Uttarakhand chief wildlife warden DS Khati, and stayed the high court order in October 2018. Khati had argued that the high court ordered the CBI probe based on newspaper reports without hearing the state or its officials.
Sati’s application said that Khati misled the court. He said the CBI probe order was passed after “damning facts” were brought to the high court’s attention about the tiger poaching. Sati added that the recovery of tiger skins from Nepal, which the WII attested to being of Corbett tigers, indicated an international syndicate behind the crime, which required an expert agency like CBI to examine.
The application, filed through advocate Govind Jee, challenged the argument that the state was not heard and said Khati filed an affidavit in the high court, negating the claim that the probe order was passed without allowing the state to respond.
The high court ordered the probe in a common proceeding of pleas filed in 2012 and 2017 related to illegal constructions at Corbett, and for a high-level probe into the alleged poaching. One of the pleas attached a reply under the Right to Information Act in which the Uttarakhand Police said that 55 tiger/leopard skins were seized between 2014 and February 2017.
The high court inadvertently passed the order in the 2012 petition without realising that the bulk of the documents leading to it were filed in the 2017 plea.
Sati said Khati allegedly sought to take “undue” and “highly unethical advantage” of this inadvertent clerical error in the record and approached the Supreme Court, contending that the CBI probe order was issued without affording any opportunity to the forest department officers, including himself, to respond to the allegations.
He urged the Supreme Court to vacate the stay order. “The prolonged stay has effectively stymied chances of detecting as well as dismantling the transnational as well as trans state network, which was behind the poaching of tigers of Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) and which was found to be spread to Nepal and in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, and which may still be active.”
Sati said he approached the Supreme Court after seven years, after learning about the order directing a probe against Uttarakhand government officers for the alleged felling of trees and illegal construction for a safari project at Corbett. The court monitored the probe and ensured the state granted prosecution sanction against all officers.
Sati claimed Khati was indicted over tiger poaching, citing a 2018 letter from the Uttarakhand forest force head. Khati refused to comment, saying he has not see the application filed in the Supreme Court.
