Supreme Court Asks Centre To Ascertain Number Of Tiger Deaths In Recent Past

“The Centre to ascertain the reported deaths of tigers in India.”, a Bench headed by Justice KM Joseph ordered while hearing a plea aiming to relocate human settlements from reserve forests to save the tiger population in the country.

The Bench passed this direction after Justice BV Nagarathna, also part of the Bench, stated that she had come across a newspaper report of many tiger deaths recently.

“How can the tiger population rise then?”, Justice Nagarathna queried.

Nearly two months into 2023, India had already recorded 30 tiger deaths, the Indian Express and several other media portals had reported last week.

This prompted the Bench to pass the order though the counsel appearing for the Centre informed that Additional Solicitor General Aiswarya Bhati was busy in another court.

“This is very pertinent”, the Bench observed while posting the matter to come up next, later in March.

During a previous hearing in January, the Centre informed the Supreme Court on that there are 2967 tigers spread in 53 tiger reserves overall in the country as per a 2018 census. This number even constitutes 70% of the world tiger population and figures continue to grow, the Court was told.

In the PIL, Advocate Anupam Tripathi submitted that 41 tigers were killed in 7 months i.e., from January to August 9 in the year 2015, as per the data provided by the National Tiger Conservation Authority.

The plea stated that there were 74 tiger deaths reported in the year 2016, the petitioner said while submitting that these wild cats were killed by the locals residing near the reserve forests either due to man-animal conflict or poaching.

It was alleged that the tigers are being indiscriminately, barbarically and monstrously killed either by poisoning by the locals or by the authorities, shooting by the Forest Guards, poaching etc. Thus, tigers are being killed each day in the cruellest fashion.

Case Title: Anupam Tripathi And Anr. v. UoI And Ors. WP(C) No. 683/2017

Click here to read the order