Asks panel to hear stakeholders and decide issue in six weeks
Panaji: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed any developments in areas marked for tiger reserve in Goa and referred the matter to a central empowered committee (CEC) for a report in two weeks.
A bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and Atul S Chandurkar asked the CEC to hear stakeholders in the matter and decide the issue in six weeks.
The bench ordered no projects or development to be undertaken in the meantime. The committee will hear all stakeholders including petitioner and government.
The top court had earlier agreed to hear a plea filed by the Goa government and others challenging the order of the High Court of Bombay at Goa to the state to notify the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and its surrounding areas as a tiger reserve within three months.
It sought responses from the NTCA and others on the petition.
Mukul Rohatgi, senior counsel appearing for the Goa government, argued that the tiger reserve would take out 20 per cent of Goa’s 3,700 sq km from human use. He also referred to the fact 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 was notified.
Norma Alvares, senior counsel appearing for the Goa Foundation, impressed upon the top 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 the Foundation had already approached the High Court to stop these projects.
She also told the apex court that the areas for the proposed reserve were already notified as wildlife sanctuaries and national park [some as far back as 1967 and 1999/2000] and that not an inch of Goa’s land outside the existing protected areas was to be notified as a tiger reserve as per the area already demarcated by the Forest Department.
In response to the court’s query as to whether any steps had been taken by the Forest Department pursuant to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)’s recommendation to the state government to notify the Mhadei-Cotigao wildlife sanctuaries as tiger reserve, she pointed out that the state government had responded positively towards the recommendation and had demarcated 745.18 sq km as the tiger reserve, which is why the High Court had directed the state government to notify the reserve within three months. (Out of the existing protected areas of Goa totalling 745.18 sq km, only 578.33 sq km is to be declared as tiger reserve core zone, and the rest as buffer zone, where no relocation is required).
On the extent of a tiger reserve, she said the NTCA’s recommendation is to result in a tiger reserve that combines the tiger reserve areas of Kali, and other sanctuaries in Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Alvares also referred to Justice Gavai’s own 2024 judgment in the Corbett tiger reserve case on the importance of tiger reserves and tiger corridors, submitting that the state government really had no case.
The apex court, after hearing counsel, directed the matter be referred to the CEC for a report, after hearing all parties.
The report will have to be submitted to the court within two weeks, and be placed for orders after another four weeks thereafter, giving time to the parties to make submissions.
It is pertinent to note that the High Court in its ruling on July 24, 2023 mandated that the Goa government must declare the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and its surrounding areas as a tiger reserve within a three-month timeframe. Additionally, the High Court had also ordered the government to formulate a comprehensive tiger conservation plan during the same period.
