Govt, U'khand get notice on tiger reserve

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the centre and the Uttarakhand governments on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a news magazine, alleging “grave degradation of the ecological balance” in the Corbett Tiger Reserve area due to “untrammeled construction, complete devastation of the buffer zone and blockage of forest corridors and traditional migration routes”.

A bench of Justices Swatanter Kumar and S J Mukhopadhaya sought the responses from the state government and Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) here and decided to tag the petition filed by Tehelka and noted journalist Nalini Singh with a pending matter on creating buffer zones in Tiger reserve areas across the country.

Senior advocate Chandra Uday Singh and advocate Sujatha Balachander appeared for the petitioners. The petition pointed out “startling” mortality statistics of tigers and leopards as per the official database of the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Protection Society of India, which stated that in the year so far, we have lost 47 tigers and 222 leopards.