The Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu forest department to conduct training programmes for all its field level officers on the nuances involved in investigating wildlife offences with greater stress on collection of digital evidence.
A special Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy issued the direction pursuant to a report filed by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the court to probe elephant poaching cases.
The SIT, in its report, had stated that almost all wildlife offences get reported late due to the nature of the terrain where such offences occur and hence, crucial evidence, required to prosecute the offenders, gets lost by the time the forest authorities reach the scene of crime. The SIT further stated that the forest officials were not in the habit of maintaining a serially numbered case diary and that, by and large, they rely solely on the confession of the accused to prosecute them instead of conducting a detailed field investigation to gather additional materials.
“In many cases, even photographs, with timeline, from the place of seizures are not taken though such an exercise can easily and conclusively prove the possession of elephant tusks or any other banned wildlife remains especiallly in view of the fact that mere possession itself is an offence” the report read.
