VADODARA, May 18: Vadodara District and Sessions Judge V K Mali scheduled an order in the lion cub case for Wednesday afternoon after the conclusion of arguments on Tuesday. The order will be on the case about the possession of the animal. Earlier, in an hour-long session at the packed court, Mali heard arguments from both sides - the Apollo Circus, and the forest department, which seized the animal - and kept the order on the possession of the animal for Wednesday.Counsel for the circus Kaushik Bhatt demanded that the animal be given to the circus as it might die without its mother, which is at the circus, as had been ordered by a lower court. To various arguments presented by public prosecutor B G Biniwale, he held that had the animal not belonged to the circus, senior forest officials of Maharashtra and Surat would not have given the circus permission to transfer it.On the issue of animal's ownership certificate, the circus had applied long ago though a reply from Maharashtra government was still awaited, Bhatt added. Biniwale held that the very fact that the animal was found at a birthday party without a transit permit was a crime under Section 39 of Wildlife Protection Act, which made the forest department's claim to it genuine.
