New Delhi: To spread awareness on wildlife law and to reinforce the fight against wildlife crime, the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) today officially launched a website, www.wildlifelaw.in containing information on the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and a compilation of judgments in prominent wildlife cases of the country. The website, an electric version of the book ‘Commentaries on Wildlife Law – Cases, Statutes & Notifications’ aims to make reference material and information on related laws available to everyone concerned, to help them effectively fight wildlife crime.

The last two decades of the 20th century witnessed an increasing use of legal and judicial processes by Indians to protect the environment and wildlife. The absence of regular law journals or digests had greatly affected a plethora of decisions by the Supreme Court and High Courts on forest and wildlife cases. The prosecution of wildlife offenders has often been significantly held back due to the difficulty in accessing case laws on forest and wildlife issues, and other related information.

Authored by Ritwick Dutta, an environment lawyer and Legal Advisor to Wildlife Trust of India, the book titled ‘Commentaries on Wildlife Law – Cases, Statutes & Notifications’ is the first ever commentary on the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and includes an up-to-date compilation of the judgments on Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, Indian Forest Act, 1927, Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and other relevant statutes. The enforcement of these protective legislations will be enhanced by availability of adequate information about developments in the courts in cases related to poaching and seizure of animal article, forest produce, etc.

The electronic version makes information on this subject widely available across the country. It contains all the important judgments categorised according to the issues dealt or orders by the respective courts, orders and notifications on the wildlife and forest conservation issues and also includes decisions on broad environmental issues that impact wildlife and its habitat. The bare Acts of all the relevant laws have been provided in the website. It has been designed in a user-friendly format including a comprehensive search engine to help in the navigation. This website will provide the availability of all major interlocutory orders as well as the case laws that will greatly enhance the ability of enforcement agencies in court cases relating to wildlife offences. These interlocutory orders are not reported in any of the law journals despite having legal force. The website will be regularly updated to include latest judgments as well as interlocutory orders.

The database on this website will be used as reference by various enforcement agencies in order to implement the Apex and the subordinate court decisions. It will provide a huge pool of judgments and court orders to the field level enforcement officials, lawyers engaged in dealing with wildlife related offences, Non Government Organisations and activists among others.