SC to hear plea for steps to protect leopards in India

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear in November a plea seeking steps for protection of leopards in the country including setting up a task force on the lines of tiger conservation project.

A bench of justices M B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said that it will take up in the month of November a petition filed by advocate Anupam Tripathi, seeking directions to the Centre to set up Project Leopard and allocate funds for it accordingly to protect and preserve the leopard population.

"If a specific task force may not be a viable option, in such a case the existing tiger task force and the forest guards protecting the tigers in the wild in India, their scope of duty may be widened to also include the leopards in the wild in India on priority basis," the plea said.

It also sought directions to the Centre to take drastic and tough steps including "right to shoot and kill poachers" by the forest guard and task force.

The petition also pointed out that two decades ago there were more than 45,000 leopards in India but as per the 2015 census, less than 7,900 of them remain in the wild.

It said that in 2016, alone, India lost 455 leopards followed by 431 leopard deaths in 2017 and in the first two months of this year, the country lost 106 leopards owing to a wide number of reasons such as poaching and man-leopard conflict.

The plea said there was a grave need for fixing accountability, responsibility and liability on officers of forest department who are in charge of the jurisdiction in which the man-leopard conflict has taken place.

"There is a need for education and spreading awareness among the farmers who have domestic cattle and livestock and are routinely in conflict with the leopard eyeing their livestock, to take steps of keeping well trained guard dogs," the plea said.