The Uttarakhand High Court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the death of tigers at the Corbett Tiger Reserve in the last five years and the possibility of ‘complicity’ and ‘connivance’ of the officers/officials with the poachers.
In its order dated 4 September, 2018, the court said, in view of the data placed on record by the petitioners and the transfer of officers/ officials of Haridwar Forest Range after their involvement in destruction of evidence, that “the present case is the rarest of the rare cases (sic) where the expertise of CBI is solicited.” The bench directed the agency to submit its report within three months.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Lok Pal Singh also rejected the Uttarakhand’s forest department’s explanation in which the department cited Charles Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” on the deaths of 40 tigers and 272 leopards in the state in a period of two-and-a-half years. The court described it as a “very big number” and said “all the tigers must be preserved and sound”.
Read more at: FIRSTPOST
Image source: Corbett National Park
