Case No. – 6083 of 2016
HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA
BENCH: Hon’ble Anand Byrareddy J.
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 1 September 2016
RELEVANT ACTS/SECTIONS:
Section 11 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Hunting of wild animals to be permitted in certain cases)
Section 29 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Destruction, etc., in a sanctuary prohibited without a permit)
Section 35 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Declaration of national parks)
Section 39 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Wild animals, etc., to be Government property)
Section 40 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Declaration)
Section 44 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Dealings in trophy and animal articles without license prohibited)
Section 49(B) of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Prohibition of dealings in trophies, animal articles, etc., derived from scheduled animals.)
Section 49(C) of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Declaration by dealers)
Section 51 of the wildlife protection act 1972 (Penalties)
BACKSTORY
The petitioner was a woman, who is belonged to the Korean nation and she had a spousal visa because her husband was pursuing his Ph.D. in Peace at Martin Luther King University at Shillong, Meghalaya that time.
On 13.04.2015 at about 6.50 a.m., the applicant was travel from Kempegowda International Airport, Bangalore by Indigo Flight bearing No.6E-457 to Guwahati. At the point when she was exposed to the security check, she had been found to have a horn of a Chital Deer. The candidate was captured by the security staff of the Airport and the issue was accounted for to the Station House Officer, Devanahalli Police Station and an F.I.R. came to be enrolled by the respondent in Crime NO.53/2015 for offences culpable under Sections 39, 40, 44, 49(B), 49(C) and 51 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and the applicant was captured and the property was seized by the police. The candidate was then delivered before the jurisdictional Magistrate, who remanded her to legal custody. The candidate had moved for standard bail and from that point, she had conceded abandon certain conditions which incorporated that the applicant would not leave the nation and was required to give her passport.
The applicant additionally asserts that the whole procedures were misconceived, as there was no offence committed by her under the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972 and in such manner, she had created a report dated 29.04.2015 by the National Center for Biological Sciences, which would be uncovered that the sample was supposedly an antler matching the DNA of the Chital Deer which is a wild animal characterized at Schedule III of the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972, while the offences affirmed under Sections 40. 44, 49(B) and 49(C) in the F.I.R. and, the charge-sheet didn’t relate to a Schedule III animal. To the extent that Section 39 of the Act, was concerned, the equivalent wasn’t material, as the seized material was not the outcome of any hunting referred to in Section 11 and it was neither found in a Sanctuary referred to in Section 29 of the Act nor in any National Park referred to Section 35 of the Act.
It was clear that the applicant was in charge of an antler. The antler of a deer isn’t generally a horn, however a hard-skeletal bulge of the skull and comprises basically of the protein collagen and the mineral calcium hydroxyapatite. Tusks happen in many types of the deer family and are developed and shed every year, ordinarily just by males. so, that’s why the applicant prayed to the court to cancel the proceedings and release her passport.
FORENSIC FINDINGS
The antler sample sent for examination in a forensic laboratory, the forensic report said that sample’s DNA was matched to the DNA of the Chital deer species.
JUDGEMENTS
The Passport that had been seized was discharged forthwith to the applicant. And as the subject of applying a few arrangements, as properly fought by the learned counsel for the applicant, didn’t emerge. so that the whole procedures were misconceived and subsequently, the request was immediately permitted and the procedures were suppressed.