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The Supreme Court has reinstated the interim protection from arrest for Wildlife SOS co-founder and CEO Kartick Satyanarayan in an alleged leopard poaching case.
A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar directed Satyanarayan to appear before the forest authorities at 11 am on September 28 and fully cooperate with the investigation. The bench passed the order while hearing Satyanarayans challenge to a Madhya Pradesh High Court order which had withdrawn the protection earlier granted to him. Without expressing any opinion on merits, we dispose of the Special Leave Petition(s) with the direction that the order passed by the High Court on September 2 in shall continue to hold field till disposal of the writ petitions, the bench stated in the order. The dispute arises from a Madhya Pradesh State Tiger Strike Force (STSF) investigation into alleged leopard poaching after leopard skins were recovered in Agra, Uttar Pradesh. The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Gwalior bench had recently dismissed two petitions filed under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. It also recalled Satyanarayan's interim protection from arrest, citing alleged non-cooperation, and directed him to appear before the STSF on September 21. The State had alleged that Satyanarayan failed to cooperate with the investigation, suppressed a third summons and an arrest warrant issued against him, and did not join the probe into the alleged poaching of 10 leopards in Sheopur and Morena districts. The State has described Satyanarayan as absconding, a characterisation disputed by Wildlife SOS. The organisation has maintained that seeking legal protection does not amount to refusing to cooperate with the investigation. (ANI)
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