Nagpur: Five months after the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court slammed forest department for lack of accountability in the killing of Pandharkawda tigress T1 aka Avni, state government on Friday constituted a six-member committee to fix responsibility on those who violated the laws.
In January, 2021, the high court had criticised the forest department for negligence in fixing accountability of officers who, prima facie, did not perform their duty properly in the Avni shooting.
The unauthorized shooting of the tigress was carried out by private shooter Asghar Ali Khan on November 2, 2018.
A PIL on the issue is pending in the court.
The committee will be headed by APCCF Vikas Gupta, while DFO Shatanik Bhagwat will be member-secretary.
Other members include Yavatmal deputy SP, director of Regional Forensic Laboratory, Nagpur, Tushar Bawne, assistant commissioner (animal husbandry), and JP Patil, law & judiciary department.
This is the third committee to probe Avni killing.
Earlier, hearing the PIL in January, Justice Sunil S Shukre and Justice Avinash G Gharote, who studied the inquiry reports of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and state committee, apparently found that there had been several lacunae in the investigation, especially on the part of the state government.
The court had also observed that there were some officers from the forest department, who, prima facie, have not performed their duty and the department has made no inquiry into their negligence so as to fix accountability.
The court had also said there was lack of clarity in the orders issued by the chief wildlife warden and chief conservator of forest (CCF), Yavatmal, regarding specific role, responsibility, and authority delegated.
The reports state that there was lack of clarity in assigning local executive leadership of the operation to Pandharkawda deputy conservator, which was a major reason for the operational and other errors in decision-making regarding the execution of the order to capture T1 alive or dead.