NEW DELHI: It was an ex-parte interim stay order by Supreme Court on a CBI probe into tiger poaching in Jim Corbett National Park, but it has continued to be in force for the last seven years. On Monday, Supreme Court finally issued notice on a plea for lifting the stay to pave the way for investigations into the case. A bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and justices K Vinod Chandran and N V Anjaria agreed to hear the plea after senior advocate Meenakshi Arora and lawyer Govid Jee brought it to the court’s notice that the stay order had been in operation for the last seven years despite the CBI’s preliminary enquiry suggesting “connivance of forest officers/officials with poachers”.Arora, appearing for environmentalist Atul Sati, told the apex court that the CBI report had suggested the involvement of the officer who got the stay order from the court. The counsel for the officer countered her plea and sought time to file a response. The court thereafter granted the lawyer three weeks’ time. CBI filed an application in 2023 for lifting the stay order passed by the apex court in 2018. On Sept 4, 2018, the HC had ordered a CBI probe into all poaching cases in the state in the past five years, to find out the “complicity, involvement or collusion” of serving forest department officials in such incidents.
