With the present Wild Life (Protection ) Act 1972 failing to deter poaching, the New Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill 2010 law will have those found guilty of offences against animals sentenced to a jail term of five to seven years with a minimum fine of Rs 5 lakh as against the present fine of Rs 10,000.
To ensure higher conviction rate, the proposed legislation empowers the judge or magistrate to allow detention of the accused, in custody of the forest department, for a period of upto seven days to facilitate investigation into the case.
A senior forest official pointed out that with organised poacher gangs using leg hold-traps to kill endangered animals like tiger and leopard, the new law will ban the sale and manufacturing of these gadgets as also regulate their possession.
“Traps are dangerous devices that can cause grave damage to human beings but are not regulated by any law. Use of these traps is in violation of the Prevention of Cruelty (Capture of Animals) Rules, 1979,” the official added.
The new bill will not allow any individual to artificially cultivate, breed in captivity or trade in an exotic species or scheduled specimen.
Yet another new Section 49F in the bill states that “an officer not below the rank of additional director general of forests will be heading the management authority which would be responsible for issuance of permits for regulating the import, export and re-export of any scheduled specimen.”