The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to urgently hear a plea by Wildlife SOS co-founder and CEO Kartick Satyanarayan, who faces arrest in a Madhya Pradesh case involving the alleged poaching of leopards.
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant agreed to expedite the listing of two petitions filed by Satyanarayan after senior advocate Siddhartha Dave, appearing for him, urged the court to intervene against the threat of arrest.
Dave told the CJI that Satyanarayan and his non-profit organisation had been wrongly implicated despite their work in wildlife protection. He also argued that Satyanarayan’s inability to appear before the Madhya Pradesh State Tiger Strike Force (STSF) on a particular date could not be treated as non-cooperation with the investigation or as an indication that he was absconding.
The petitions have been filed through advocate-on-record B Shravant Shanker.
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The development comes days after the Madhya Pradesh high court withdrew interim protection from Satyanarayan, holding that he had failed to cooperate with investigators despite being protected from coercive action.
{{/usCountry}}The development comes days after the Madhya Pradesh high court withdrew interim protection from Satyanarayan, holding that he had failed to cooperate with investigators despite being protected from coercive action.
{{/usCountry}}In its September 7 order, the Gwalior bench said the protection granted to him on September 2 had been obtained “without full disclosure of vital records and circumstances”. It directed Satyanarayan to appear before the STSF on September 21 and cooperate with the probe.
The state forest department had sought recall of the interim protection, telling the high court that Satyanarayan had not disclosed a third summons issued to him on August 24 or an arrest warrant issued by a competent court on August 31. The department has described him as an absconding accused and said he failed to join the investigation despite three summonses.
The case originates from the July 23 arrest of four alleged poachers on the Gwalior-Agra highway with 10 leopard skins. The STSF subsequently began investigating the alleged hunting, procurement and movement of the wildlife articles after the skins were traced to Madhya Pradesh.
The probe into the killing of 10 leopards in Sheopur and Morena districts has led to the arrest of several people, including Bhagwan Singh, described by investigators as a wildlife trader associated with Wildlife SOS, and Wasim Akram, a director with the organisation. Investigators have alleged that the two named Satyanarayan during questioning.
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Satyanarayan had approached the high court seeking quashing of summonses issued to him and the Preliminary Offence Report in the case. The Wildlife SOS has refuted the allegations against its officials and maintained that it has been cooperating with the investigation.
The state, however, has maintained that the Madhya Pradesh probe concerns the alleged hunting of the leopards and those who facilitated or abetted it, while a separate Uttar Pradesh case relates to possession and transportation of the skins.