Bengaluru: The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition that requested another probe into imports of wild animals by Vantara, the Reliance-owned zoo and rescue center in Gujarat’s Jamnagar. The petition was based on findings detailed in a document released in October by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the multilateral body which regulates international trade in wildlife and wildlife parts.Hearing the petition on March 9, the court said that the CITES document had arrived at the same conclusion that the Special Investigation Team appointed by the court made in September last year – that all permits were in order and that the imports were not for commercial purposes.However, what the court did not say is that the CITES document said much more. While the document does say that it did not find evidence of animals being imported to India without valid permits, some animal imports “still raised questions” about several aspects including India not exercising “due diligence” in giving some permits, it said. The document had also pointed out specific cases of animal imports to make these arguments, as The Wire has previously reported.What the petition saidThe petition filed in the Supreme Court had requested that the court look into the import of wildlife from across the world to Vantara (also called the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre or GZRRC), Reliance’s zoo cum rescue center in Jamnagar, Gujarat. Citing a document published by CITES in October 2025, the petition alleged violations of CITES regulations in the import of wildlife to the facility. It sought that the court ask the facility to place the “entire record pertaining to permissions, recognitions, and import/export licences granted” to the facility since 2019, along with all CITES permits, internal evaluations, minutes of the Central Zoo Authority, and any correspondence exchanged with the CITES Secretariat or foreign Management Authorities related to this matter. All country signatories to the CITES have a Management Authority that takes decisions pertaining to CITES permits, among other things; in India, it is the Union environment ministry. The petition requested the court to constitute an “Independent National Wildlife Trade Compliance Monitoring Committee”, chaired by a retired Judge of the Supreme Court and comprising eminent experts in wildlife biology, international trade regulation and environmental law. It also asked that the Committee be mandated to “verify the legality and authenticity of all CITES import, export and re export permits” connected in this matter. It sought that the government initiate appropriate proceedings under several sections of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 pertaining to acquisition of animals and recognition under the CZA and violations under the WLPA, “including suspension or cancellation of zoo recognition, if the inquiry reveals contraventions of law or misuse of recognition”.It also sought that the authorities involved “formulate, publish and notify a comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) within a period of three months, laying down the processfor due diligence and verification of CITES permits”. It requested that the apex court direct that no further imports or acquisitions of live animals listed under Appendix I of the CITES Convention be permitted by any private zoo, trust, or facility, until the Committee submits its verification report to the court.This is the second petition in this regard. In August last year, a petition filed in the apex court resulted in the court setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter and look at various aspects including the validity of import permits for wildlife. Vantara’s wild animal imports had created controversy with some news reports, such as this one, alleging that Vantara’s demand for rescued wild animals – including critically endangered species of which very few individuals remain in the wild – had spurred illegal wildlife trade across the globe with animals being sourced from their native habitats in the wild. In September, the SIT’s report said that everything was in order, and the court ruled that Vantara’s animal acquisitions were “as per law”.However, several questions have been raised about this entire exercise, as The Wire has reported: the haste with which the Supreme Court put together the SIT to look into the issue, the SIT submitting its report in about 20 days, and the fact that the court did not make the SIT report public. The SIT had also submitted its report in a sealed cover to the court.What the court saidThe Supreme Court dismissed the second petition on March 9.The court had already heard this matter before, the Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Misra and N.V. Anjaria said, adding that the final report by the SIT constituted by the court to look into the operations of Vantara had recorded that there was “no violation of any domestic or international law”.Once an import has occurred under the valid permission, it cannot subsequently be treated as prohibited in the capacity of the importer just because the objections were raised thereafter, the court said.“More importantly, disturbing the settled environment, custody and air of living animals, including rescued animals after lawful import, may itself result in cruelty,” the bench said.The bench also said that the CITES Secretarial Document relied upon by the petitioner “does not assist his case”.“On the contrary, the said document records that CITES Secretariat found no evidence that the animals had been imported without the requisite CITES documentation or import permits and there is no evidence that such imports were for commercial purposes. Thus, the said conclusion is in consonance with the findings recorded by the SIT, and accepted by this court,” the order read. What the CITES document really saidHowever, this is not the entire truth. The Supreme Court order does not seem to have taken into account the very next line in the CITES document – that several imports “still raise questions” about several aspects, including the “exercise of due diligence by India” in granting those import permits in the first place.Here is that entire paragraph in full, from the CITES document in question, accessed by The Wire:“Based on a desk review of the information provided, and after completion of the mission to India, the Secretariat notes that it has not found evidence of animals being imported to India without CITES export permits or re-export certificates and, for Appendix-I species, import permits. At this juncture, the Secretariat has not found evidence of any import for primarily commercial purposes or commercial use of the imported animals either. However, several imports still raise questions regarding the origin of the specimens, the application of Article VII, paragraphs 4-5 and the use of source and purpose-of-transaction codes, and the exercise of due diligence by India.”The CITES document had also pointed out specific cases to make these arguments, including an example of forged permits from Cameroon for the import of eight chimpanzees to Vantara. The transfer allegedly did not occur as the GZRRC had chosen to not go ahead with it due to “lack of transparency” from the facility that housed the captive chimpanzees in the African country. However India issued import permits anyway – without verifying if the export permits submitted were forged.“The example of the forged permits related to Cameroon shows that the high number of acquisitions of animals by the GZRRC and RKTEWT [Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust, an allied facility] has attracted attention. This may increase risks of illegal wildlife trade or increased harvests of wild animals then traded as bred in captivity,” the CITES document had warned.A handy court orderIn its order on March 9 dismissing the latest petition that sought to inquire into wildlife acquisitions by Vantara, the Supreme Court quoted its own order that cleared Vantara of any wrongdoing based on the SIT report it had commissioned.The same court order has been used by India too to tell the CITES that Vantara’s wild animal imports were in order – and the CITES document mentions this too. Here’s one example. In the document, CITES said that its Secretariat had received information from the Management Authority of Czechia that “it had no doubts that the animals imported from Czechia had been sold to the GZRRC and were not exported for the purpose of rescue”. The document also said that the Czech MA had provided invoices showing lists of animals acquired, price per unit, taxes, etc. The Secretariat then communicated this to the Indian MA, to obtain clarifications.“The Indian MA referred to the recent Order of the Supreme Court of India, dated 15 September 2025, where the Court stated that “the acquisition of animals by Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre and Radhe Krishna Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust have been carried out in regulatory compliance without any violation of the provisions of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, Recognition of Zoo Rules, 2009, guidelines of the Central Zoo Authority, CITES requirements, Foreign Trade (Regulation and Development) Act, 1992, Customs Act, 1962, FEMA, 1999, Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, or any other law,” the CITES document said.It also noted that the Indian MA, citing the same court order, said that the invoices in question “were found to effectively be a CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) invoice” that only “indicates the cost of insurance and freight as is required to be described for any import (even ones’ own pet, much less an animal at a zoo) for customs purposes only.” However, all these details are presumably mentioned in the SIT report which the court has not made public.“The Indian MA finally relied on another finding of the Supreme Court according to which “where animals are procured by ‘Donor Zoo’ in accordance with the law applicable to them and transferred to Vantara entities, once the export is under a valid export permit, such transfer or donation cannot be treated as a contravention of Indian law or CITES”, the CITES document had said.But taking all these into consideration, CITES had still rapped the Indian CITES Management Authority (which comes under the Union environment ministry) for lapses, and advised that India not import endangered wildlife anymore until it conducts ‘due diligence’ while issuing permits and implements several recommendations to this effect.However, at the CITES meeting in Uzbekistan in November last year, several countries including India, the United States, Japan and Brazil said that restricting India from importing endangered wildlife was too premature, with some also saying there was no evidence of illegal imports into India, according to some reports. Vantara, meanwhile, has stated that the Supreme Court gave it a “clean chit” and that all allegations of the facility spurring illegal wildlife trade due to demand for “rescued animals” was “misleading” and “baseless”. In a statement to The Wire in March last year, Vantara said that it “does not engage in or support the wild capture of animals”, and that it “emphatically and unequivocally” rejects the suggestion that Vantara’s demand for rescue animals may have encouraged their capture from the wild.