Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The principal bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court in Jabalpur has issued notice to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change(MoEFCC), New Delhi, principal secretary, forests, Bhopal and National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), New Delhi, over tiger deaths in Madhya Pradesh. Chief justice Sanjeev Sachdeva passed the order.
As per the petition filed by RTI activist Ajay Dubey, the total tiger population in the world is 5,421, out of which India has 3167 tigers and Madhya Pradesh has 785 as per the latest census. But unfortunately, in 2025 54 tiger deaths were reported in Madhya Pradesh, the highest since Project Tiger started in India.
Since the launch of Project Tiger in 1973, the state has never recorded such a high number of tiger deaths in a single year. Six tigers died across the state in just one week,. Official data revealed that nearly 57 per cent of these deaths were classified as unnatural , attributed to causes such as poaching, electrocution or unexplained circumstances.
Senior advocate Aditya Sanghi who appeared on behalf of RTI activist Ajay Dubey argued, A carcass was found during a field survey conducted under the all India tiger estimation exercise in the Chandia forest range of Umaria district in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in December.
It was found near a power line, immediately triggering suspicion. Forest officials have acknowledged that death due to electrocution cannot be ruled out. A railway line passes through the core zone of the Ratapani Tiger Reserve, which was recently inaugurated as a tiger reserve in the state.
