Summary:
Nainital: The Uttarakhand high court (HC) pulled up the state government on Thursday for not forming a Wildlife Crime Bureau despite it being approved in 2016. He had also named certain officials and demanded that they be transferred for an impartial probe by the CBI.The petition requested the court to take “appropriate action towards conservation of the national animal and initiate steps to check anti-conservation activities in the state.” While hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) related to poaching of tigers, the high court asked the state government to answer within a week why a bureau to tackle wildlife crimes wasn’t formed despite approval from the state wildlife board for the same.The PIL filed by Rajiv Mehta, former warden of Rajaji Tiger Reserve, on Wednesday alleged negligence by the state government on tiger deaths and investigation into recovery of five tiger skins from Corbett Tiger Reserve in 2016.Mehta had claimed earlier that the forest officials had failed to investigate the matter properly..