The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to urgently hear a plea by Wildlife SOS co-founder and CEO Kartick Satyanarayan, who faces arrest in a Madhya Pradesh case involving the alleged poaching of leopards.
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant agreed to expedite the listing of two petitions filed by Satyanarayan after senior advocate Siddhartha Dave, appearing for him, urged the court to intervene against the threat of arrest.
The state forest department had sought recall of the interim protection, telling the high court that Satyanarayan had not disclosed a third summons issued to him on August 24 or an arrest warrant issued by a competent court on August 31. The development comes days after the Madhya Pradesh high court withdrew interim protection from Satyanarayan, holding that he had failed to cooperate with investigators despite being protected from coercive action. Satyanarayan had approached the high court seeking quashing of summonses issued to him and the Preliminary Offence Report in the case. The Wildlife SOS has refuted the allegations against its officials and maintained that it has been cooperating with the investigation.
Dave told the CJI that Satyanarayan and his non-profit organisation had been wrongly implicated despite their work in wildlife protection. The department has described him as an absconding accused and said he failed to join the investigation despite three summonses.
He also argued that Satyanarayan’s inability to appear before the Madhya Pradesh State Tiger Strike Force (STSF) on a particular date could not be treated as non-cooperation with the investigation or as an indication that he was absconding.
