HC takes suo motu note of leopard’s death due to negligence of forest staff

According to the news reports published on Wednesday, forest department staff was called in after the leopard was spotted near Thergaon village in Paithan tehsil.

Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court on Thursday took suo motu cognisance of news reports revealing that a leopard died in Paithan because of purported negligence and lack of sensitivity on part of the forest department personnel.

According to the news reports published on Wednesday, forest department staff was called in after the leopard was spotted near Thergaon village in Paithan tehsil. The news reports indicated that the leopard could not be tranquillised by darts and was physically captured by using nets.

After the leopard was captured, there was no necessity to tranquillise him, though this was subsequently done. The leopard was then carried by employees of the forest department to Gautala forest area along the Aurangabad-Kannad road. However, the leopard died even before he was released in its natural surroundings and was, therefore, subjected to postmortem.

The veterinary expert Dr Vijay Rahate, who conducted the postmortem, noticed that some of the employees of the forest department had stepped on the neck of the leopard in their attempt to immobilize the big cat and this caused asphyxiation (suffocation) leading to the death of the animal.

“This incident cannot be taken lightly,” said justice Ravindra Ghuge while taking suo motu cognisance of the alleged callousness on part of the forest department staff.

The court has appointed advocate Chaitanya Dharurkar as amicus curiae and requested him to draft a proper public interest litigation petition and file it on or before April 27. The suo motu PIL will come up for hearing on April 30.

Apart from the forest department, Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) will also be a party to the PIL and the civic chief has been asked to collect all original documents related to the capturing of the ill-fated leopard from the forest department. Besides, the court said, it will require the assistance of the veterinary doctors available at its Siddharth Udyan zoo run by the civic body.