The arrest of Tehelka reporter Kumar Badal for his alleged complicity in skinning big cats in Saharanpur has turned attention on the huge pendency in wildlife cases. This is proved by a mere visit to the courtroom at New Delhi’s Tis Hazari, which is designated to hear wildlife cases. There are some 250 wildlife cases being heard by the designated judge, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Tej Singh Kashyap here, and conviction orders are announced just once or twice a year. One morning, five wildlife cases were listed but since the judge was on leave, the accused were simply allotted fresh dates. And guess who sauntered out of court with a four-month reprieve since the next date of hearing was fixed for November 11? None other than Sansar Chand, the infamous skin smuggler who was named in nine cases under the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act and who now lives in Delhi’s Walled City area. Here is what the recovery list in just one case reads: 973 jackal skins, 976 jungle cat skins, five leopard skins, one tiger skins, 25,800 snake skins. The case dates back to 1988. Recording of evidence is yet not complete. Where does the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Kumar Badal fit in all this? The CBI was, after all, made the nodal agency for handling wildlife cases in January 2001. But even before that, important cases had been transferred to the agency. Since 1997, the CBI has booked 13 cases, all of which are under trial and many of them in Tej Singh Kashyap’s court. The seizures include recovery of as many as 180 skins of tiger, leopards and panthers (in four different cases) though CBI prosecutors admit they are years away from a conviction in any of the cases. Since ’97, CBI has booked 13 cases, all of which are under trial and many in the wildlife court. Prosecutors admit that they are years away from a conviction in any of the cases It now emerges that the CBI was trailing Sansar Chand and had already raided his residence on two occasions. The agency got a breakthrough of sorts when in December 1999, they booked his close relative and many say his business rival, Motilal. The case involved the recovery of 50 leopard skins, three tiger skins and five otter skins from a truck and later it was Motilal who challenged the jurisdiction of the CBI in wildlife cases. The case went up to the Supreme Court where the CBI’s jurisdiction was upheld. Predictably, Sansar Chand’s lawyer, Anil Sehgal, was the most critical of CBI’s role. He admitted that he was easily able to get bail for his client since there was so much lacunae in evidence. ‘‘The CBI will never get convictions in a majority of their wildlife cases because of the length of the trial and huge list of witnesses. Even in the Motilal case the CBI has listed 100 witnesses. These cases will go on for more than a decade.’’ Experts and lawyers say that if a review of the CBI’s wildlife cell was made, a few things stand out. One, that the agency is strapped for manpower, specially since it their narcotics cell doubles up as the wildlife unit, manned only by about 20 personnel. And two, that in the absence of its own technical expertise, the CBI is forced to depend on the NGO circuit of wildlife experts. Says Sidharth Luthra, who appealed against the CBI in the Motilal case and is now defending Kumar Badal, ‘‘What people do not realise is that wildlife cases are technical in nature. In the initial stage of collecting evidence, the CBI relies on social workers and this can prejudice the position of many innocent people.’’ Members of the CBI’s wildlife cell admit the cases were demanding in nature, specially since they also required recording of evidence in the pre-charge stage. The pattern in the CBI’s ongoing 13 cases is that the recovery of skins and some more exotic seizures like articles made of wild boar teeth have been made in transit, and those of shatoosh shawls from shopping arcades in hotels. As one official concedes, ‘‘The problem is that there are no witnesses to the crime and no crime scene as such. There is also little or no evidence about the end users of the protected articles.’’ In the absence of any special expertise, the CBI unit has been seeking counsel from experts from the Ministry of Environment and various NGOs. Among their key advisors is S C Sharma, Additional Director General (wildlife), who says while CBI prosecutors were far more effective than the foresters and wildlife wardens who appear in cases booked by the state police, there were still many shortfalls. ‘‘Even CBI does not have dedicated personnel for tracking poachers or compiling intelligence. There is also a shortage of manpower. The existing staff of CBI’s unit find it difficult to cover the entire country,’’ he points out. Ashok Sharma, a trustee of the Wildlife Trust of India, is the other expert who has been interacting with the CBI. He says that in comparison to the lackadaisical approach of state prosecutors, the CBI did sustained investigations. ‘‘There are international agencies who want to assist in wildlife enforcement and one way was to ask them to help in providing CBI with some special expertise.’’ he says. Sudhir Mishra, advocate, who is assisting in prosecution of 42 wildlife cases, adds, ‘‘While CBI officials realise the gravity of wildlife crimes, they still have to be sensitised in the area of wildlife protection. In my view, the CBI should be more selective in cases they take up so that the unit does not get bogged down.’’
