SC rejects plea against shifting of tiger Ustaad to Udaipur zoo

 The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a petition against the shifting of tiger 'Ustaad', an alleged man-eater, from the Ranthambore reserved forest to an Udaipur zoo.

The tiger was shifted from Ranthambore forest after it killed a forest guard on May 8. A vacation bench of Justices P C Pant and Amitava Roy said it would not interfere with the order of the Rajasthan High Court which had dismissed the plea against the relocation of tiger -- T-24 or 'Ustaad', from the Ranthambore reserved forest to Sajjangarh Biological Park in Udaipur, Rajasthan.

"This is not the case in which the court should interfere. The tiger has only been shifted from one place to another. Had there been any direction to kill him, we would have done something. "This is a case more of publicity and not a case of captivity... He (tiger) must be getting acclimatised to the new environment by now," the bench said.

The apex court was hearing an appeal by environmentalist Chandra Bhal Singh against the Rajasthan High Court order which had dismissed his PIL challenging the shifting of T-24. Singh, in his plea, had alleged that the wildlife department in Rajasthan had failed to take the requisite permission under section 12 of the Wildlife Protection Act before proceeding to relocate the tiger to the zoo and hence the move was illegal. The PIL had said the tiger had attacked and killed a Forest Guard in "self defence" and a decision to shift it out was taken the very next day "without scientific probe or investigation into the circumstances of the attack."