NT Reporter
Panaji
Hearing a case pertaining to the proposed Goa tiger reserve, the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered its Secretary General to conduct a fact-finding inquiry into the issue of missing Record of Proceedings/Order Sheets from case
paper books.
The Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi directed that a report should be submitted
to the CJI.
“This has become common every day that we find all material ROPs from the paper books are missing. A trend which is being followed by the Registry. It seems to be a deliberate attempt for some obvious reasons. In the case at hand also, the order dated 8 September, 2025, is the one which gives way forward but the same is conspicuously missing,” the bench noted.
The Supreme Court, by its order dated September 8, 2025, had stayed any developments in areas marked for tiger reserve and referred the matter to the Central Empowered Committee for a report.
Mukul Rohatgi, senior counsel appearing for the Goa government, had argued that the tiger reserve would take out 20% of Goa’s 3,700 sq km from human use. He had also said that the minimum requirement for a tiger reserve was 1,000 sq km and that 15,000 families would have to be relocated, if the reserve were notified.
Norma Alvares, senior counsel appearing for NGO Goa Foundation, had impressed upon the court that while the appeal was pending before the court, the state government was already approving so-called eco-tourism commercial projects in the core zone of the proposed tiger reserve and that Goa Foundation had already approached the High Court of Bombay at Goa to stop these projects.
With the Central Empowered Committee having submitted its findings, the apex court is allowing involved parties, including Goa Foundation, to submit their responses.
The High Court, in its ruling on July 24, 2023, had mandated that the Goa government must declare the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and its surrounding areas as a tiger reserve within a three-month time-frame. Additionally, the court also ordered the government to formulate a comprehensive tiger conservation plan during the same period.
