PANJIM: The Supreme Court will hear Goa’s Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging High Court order to declare Tiger Reserve on August 30.
When the matter came up for hearing last, the division bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra ordered that the matter will be heard on August 30.
The High Court of Bombay at Goa, 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.
However, the Goa government filed the Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court challenging the High Court judgement.
The division bench of Justices Mahesh Sonak and Bharat Deshpande, in their judgment, had underscored the need to prioritise national interests over regional, parochial, and narrow political considerations at the state level when it came to conserving and safeguarding the tiger and its habitat.
The High Court had also pointed out that the State government had defied Supreme Court timelines and directives to settle the rights of forest dwellers and the government used this delay as an excuse for not notifying the Tiger Reserve.
