Project Cheetah: Concerns emerge over RTI Act 'violations', 'irregularities' in tranquillisation

New Delhi: Withholding details about Project Cheetah's implementation due to national-security and foreign-relations concerns, violations of the RTI Act and irregularities in the tranquillisation process of cheetahs in the Kuno National Park are some of the issues that have been raised by wildlife activist Ajay Dubey in a letter to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

The NTCA oversees Project Cheetah.

"Recent actions by the local project authorities -- who have systemically blocked public access to basic animal welfare, veterinary data and administrative expenditure -- render the project's governance both unacceptable and legally untenable," the letter says.


Read more: MP govt refuses RTI info on Project Cheetah

It highlights that Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Uttam Kumar Sharma functions as both the de-facto public information officer (PIO) and the first appellate authority (FAA) within the Project Cheetah administration.

While a PIO is an officer responsible for receiving queries filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act and responding to those, the FAA is an officer senior in rank to the PIO within the same public authority, who hears the first appeal if the PIO refuses, delays or gives an incomplete reply.

Dubey told PTI that in 2024, when he filed an RTI query regarding Project Cheetah, he received a response from Sharma, whose designation was mentioned as the PIO.

However, last month, he received another letter regarding his RTI query in which Sharma's designation was mentioned as the FAA.

"This is a severe, illegal violation of the RTI Act, 2005. The law explicitly mandates a clear, independent two-tier structure so an aggrieved citizen can appeal a PIO's decision to a senior officer," Dubey has written in his letter to the NTCA.

The letter also notes that Project Cheetah authorities have repeatedly blocked RTI requests regarding the project by misapplying sections 8(1)(a) and 8(1)(j) of the Act.

The sections allow a public authority to withhold information if its disclosure would "prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, or the security, strategic, scientific, or economic interests of the State, or relations with a foreign country, or lead to the incitement of an offence".

Dubey has said in his letter that invoking State secrecy to hide management failures, audit reports or administrative lapses does not protect the country, it merely shields underperforming officials from public scrutiny.

Read more: 'Ideologically biased, scientifically unfounded': New paper rejects criticism of Project Cheetah

According to the activist, unlike in the case of Project Cheetah, when it comes to tigers, the NTCA publishes standard operating procedures (SOPs), mortality statistics, post-mortem findings and population estimates in the public domain.

Another issue he has raised pertains to allegations that cheetahs have been excessively tranquillised, without mandatory prior sanctions from the chief wildlife warden, which is in violation of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

A September 2024 inspection report by then principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) and chief wildlife warden of Madhya Pradesh, V N Ambade, revealed that within just two years of Project Cheetah's launch, the cheetahs in the Kuno National Park were tranquillised 110 times.

"During an inspection in 2024, the MP Chief Wildlife Warden (CWLW), Mr Ambade, flagged grave irregularities in the tranquillisation process of cheetahs within Kuno.... The denial of these medical logs heavily implies a deliberate attempt to cover up administrative and clinical negligence," Dubey has said in his letter.

He has asked the NTCA to initiate an independent probe into all the tranquillisation conducted in the park in 2024.