SC wants to know the precise location of a road within Corbett Tiger Reserve

In a public interest lawsuit (PIL) against a bus service operating along the route, the Supreme Court requested an affidavit from the Uttarakhand government on Friday on whether a road was located in the buffer zone or the heart of the Corbett Tiger Reserve.

The state’s attorney was instructed by a bench of justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta to get guidance on the road’s location, and the affidavit had to be filed within two weeks of receiving this directive.

In 2021, attorney Gaurav Kumar Bansal filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the license to operate buses on the Pakhro-Moreghatti-Kalagarh-Ramnagar route. The December 2020 ruling allowing Garhwal Motor Owners Union to run the bus service through the Corbett for up to 30 people at a time from November to June was delayed by the court in February 2021.

The chief wildlife warden of Uttarakhand told the court in January that the authorization to operate buses was not brand-new. The bus service has been allowed since 1986, according to the state administration.

The road went through both the buffer zone and the center of the reserve, Bansal had previously told the court. He said that because the bus service cut the travel time between Kumaon and Garhwal by more than 100 km, it was allowed.

According to the director of Corbett Tiger Reserve, last year, 37 km of the 73-kilometer road went through the buffer zone. He extended the core area by 26 km.

The order authorizing the bus operation, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), was issued without their consent. In September 2022, the Union government and the NTCA said in an affidavit that Corbett had the biggest tiger source population in the Shivalik-Gangetic region. “Corridor connectivity with adjacent forest divisions and protected areas is very crucial for the long-term survival of Corbett’s tigers.”

In his appeal, Bansal claimed that the court’s protected area rules and the Wildlife Protection Act were broken by the bus operation. It claimed that the goal of the state’s decision to approve the bus service was to “provide wrongful gain to a private sector company”.

Tiger reserves may not be used in an environmentally unsound manner as per the Wildlife Protection Act. The National Board of Wildlife’s consent and the NTCA’s counsel are required if such usage becomes necessary. According to Bansal, none of these were acquired in the bus service case.

The state justified its choice by claiming that no new roads were being built. It also said that there was no need for NTCA or NBWL approval since the bus service was in the public interest. In 2018, the Uttarakhand High Court suspended the bus service before the Supreme Court stayed the ruling.