New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to decide within a week the question of entrusting to the Central Bureau of Investigation the probe into the dwindling tiger population due to poaching in the Panna Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.

A three-member Bench, comprising Chief Justice Y. K. Sabharwal, Justice Arijit Pasyat and Justice S.H. Kapadia, gave time till January 13 for the Centre to take a decision, after the Ministry of Forest and Environment said it had already handed over to the CBI the probe into the diminishing population of the big cat in the Ranthambore National Park, Rajasthan.

The Bench asked the Ministry to decide the issue expeditiously in view of the gravity of the situation. Earlier, the Centre informed the court that the CBI was asked to inquire into the possible role of poachers, connivance of Forest department staff and a nexus between other residents in the Ranthambore park.

In its affidavit, the Centre said 114 tigers had vanished from their protected habitats in the country between 1999 and 2003. Of the 173 deaths, only 59 were natural during this period. Poaching was most prevalent in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. While 24 tigers were killed in Uttar Pradesh, 23 in Maharashtra and 13 in Madhya Pradesh, only two were slain during the period in the Sariska forest reserve in Rajasthan.

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