The Supreme Court upheld an Allahabad High Court order granting immunity from investigation and prosecution if one declared illegal acquisition or possession of exotic wildlife species between June and December. This was under a new amnesty scheme announced by the Centre.
Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2020
Key-Points
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has come out with an advisory on a one-time voluntary disclosure scheme that allows owners of exotic live species that have been acquired illegally to declare their stock to the government between June and December 2020.
With this scheme, the government aims to address the challenge of zoonotic diseases, develop an inventory of exotic live species for better compliance under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and regulate their import.
In its current form, however, the amnesty scheme is just an advisory, not a law.
The disclosure has to be done online through MoEFCC’s Parivesh portal.
The advisory has defined exotic live species as animals named under the Appendices I, II and III of the CITES.
It does not include species from the Schedules of the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972.