The green bench of the Supreme Court said while hearing to an application moved by an expert committee constituted to “guide and direct” the National Tiger Conservation Authority with respect to India’s ambitious cheetah reintroduction programme has said that we have become like micro-administrators.
A bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Vikram Nath said they are not keen to interfere with the centre’s plan for releasing these felines translocated from the African continent, into the wild in India.
The Court was hearing a plea to direct the statutory body for keeping the appointed committee apprised of latest developments, along with accepting its decisos.
Justice Gavai said the National Tiger Conservation Authority is concerned with the conservation of tigers in India and after having an expert panel, the court should not have further supervision?
The Bench said that the work of the court increases if even after appointing these committees, the court has supervise them and take reports.
Senior advocate Prashanto Chandra Sen, who represented the court-appointed committee, apprised that the NTCA was not directly involved in the negotiations with the African authorities for the translocation of the cheetahs and thus the expert body was appointed by the court.
Justice Vikram Nath asked if NTCA can deal with tigers, they can deal with cheetahs also..
Senior advocate then said that the court-appointed body was helmed by Dr Ranjit Sinh(retired IAS office), who is a well-known expert in the field of cheetah and has served as a Director of Wildlife Preservation in the central government.
Advocate Sen said that the cheetahs were declared extinct in India. and thus there are not many experts in the field. He added that in terms of the contract of the expert committee members had indicated that they would continue to be consulted.
Justice Nath said that if the NTCA needs help of expert committee, they can always seek it out.
Justice Nath that the environment ministry deal with all this.
Sen further made his point saying that all he wants to point out is that there is a direction of this court mandating information to be given to the expert committee before taking any action.”
Justice Gavai asked that so there are three tiers – one NTCA, then the expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court to which NTCA will report, and finally, this court, to which our committee will report. Right?”
Sen replied,that there is only one tier comprising this committee supported by the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the National Biodiversity Authority. This is not adversarial. They are both working.
Justice Gavai firmly explained that the order was passed to mitigate certain concerns that were prevalent then. Under those circumstances, the NTCA was directed to approach the top court for permission. The court discharged the limited responsibility of deciding whether permission was to be granted.
Justice further added that the court does not possess the expertise. Time and again we are saying the same thing that we cannot foray into the domain of the experts.”
Solicitor-General for India Tushar Mehta interjected at this point,and said that if this court required the assistance of this committee, it would call upon them. How can they insist that their advice must be sought, irrespective of whether it is needed?”
Justice Gavai responded,that unfortunately, that is the direction by this court. The top law officer told the bench that the central government intends to file an application for recalling the earlier order envisioning the supervision of the court-appointed expert committee.
The bench agreed to hear the application together with the present plea by the expert body, directing the matters to be listed for further directions on Friday, March 28.