Uttarakhand activist Atul Sati has moved the Supreme Court to lift a seven-year stay on the CBI probe into Corbett tiger poaching, alleging officials misled the court and hid key Wildlife Institute of India findings. He claims the delay has blocked efforts to expose an international poaching network.
An Uttarakhand-based activist, Atul Sati, has approached the Supreme Court seeking to restart a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged tiger poaching at the Corbett National Park.
He claimed that the top court was “misled” into putting a stay on the investigation seven years ago, based on arguments that concealed key facts from the Uttarakhand High Court’s record.
Sati filed his application on November 1, asking the Supreme Court to “vacate the stay” that was granted in October 2018. He alleged that crucial findings by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) were hidden from the court.
According to him, “crucial facts on which the high court order was based were concealed from the Supreme Court,” including the WII’s report linking seized tiger skins to Corbett tigers.
In 2018, the Supreme Court had issued a notice on an appeal filed by the then Uttarakhand Chief Wildlife Warden, D.S. Khati, and stayed the high court’s order that had directed a CBI probe into the alleged poaching.
Khati had argued that the high court’s order was passed
“based on newspaper reports without hearing the state or its officials.”
However, Sati’s recent application accuses Khati of misleading the Supreme Court. “The CBI probe order was passed after damning facts were brought to the high court’s attention about the tiger poaching,” the activist said.
He 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.”
Filed through advocate Govind Jee, Sati’s application also rejected the claim that the state government was not heard. It stated that Khati had already submitted an affidavit in the high court, which means the order for a CBI probe was not made without giving the state a chance to respond.
The Uttarakhand High Court had ordered the CBI investigation while hearing a common proceeding involving two petitions—one filed in 2012 and another in 2017.
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These petitions dealt with illegal constructions inside Corbett National Park and the demand for a high-level probe into tiger poaching.
One of the petitions had attached a Right to Information (RTI) reply showing that “55 tiger/leopard skins were seized between 2014 and February 2017” by the Uttarakhand Police.
The confusion arose because the high court passed the order under the 2012 petition, even though most of the relevant documents were filed in the 2017 case. Sati claimed that Khati tried to take “undue” and “highly unethical advantage” of this clerical mistake.
He said Khati 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.”
Sati’s plea has now requested the Supreme Court to lift the stay on the CBI investigation.
The application stated,
“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,”
The activist said he approached the Supreme Court after discovering that the court had recently ordered a separate probe into allegations of illegal tree felling and unauthorized construction for a safari project at Corbett.
In that case, Sati noted,
“the court monitored the probe and ensured the state granted prosecution sanction against all officers,”
He further alleged that Khati himself was “indicted over tiger poaching,” referring to a 2018 letter written by the head of the Uttarakhand forest force. When contacted for his response, Khati refused to comment, saying that “he has not seen the application filed in the Supreme Court.”
The matter now awaits the Supreme Court’s consideration on whether to lift the seven-year-old stay and allow the CBI to continue investigating the alleged poaching network operating within and beyond India’s borders.
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