The Madhya Pradesh forest department’s refusal to disclose post-mortem reports of cheetahs that died at Kuno National Park, citing national security and strategic interests under the Right to Information Act, has exposed a larger weakness in the governance of Project Cheetah: the absence of a clear public explanation for what information can be withheld and why.
The response, issued by the public information officer in the office of the divisional forest officer at Kuno National Park in Sheopur, relied on Section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act. That provision exempts information whose disclosure could prejudicially affect India’s sovereignty and integrity, security, strategic, scientific or economic interests, or relations with a foreign state. The department linked the refusal to sensitive memoranda of understanding with Namibia and South Africa, the two countries involved in translocating African cheetahs to India.
The immediate issue is not simply whether individual autopsy reports should be released. It is whether the department has explained the connection between the medical findings of animals in a conservation programme and the statutory grounds used to restrict information. The RTI response, as reported, cited the exemption but did not provide a detailed explanation of how disclosure of the reports could affect national security, strategic interests or foreign relations.
That distinction matters because Project Cheetah is not a private activity. It is a publicly administered programme involving the Union government, the Madhya Pradesh forest department, foreign governments, international transport and the management of a protected landscape. The programme also involves public scrutiny because the deaths of reintroduced cheetahs can raise questions about animal health, transportation, acclimatisation, monitoring and institutional responsibility.
The RTI application was filed by wildlife activist Ajay Dubey, who sought autopsy details of cheetahs that died at Kuno after being introduced into the wild. He also sought details of foreign tours undertaken by officials in connection with Project Cheetah. In its response dated October 9, the Kuno divisional forest officer’s office said the post-mortem reports could not be disclosed under Section 8(1)(a). On the question of foreign tours, the office said that no records were available.
The two replies create different accountability problems. The first is a refusal based on a broad statutory exemption. The second is an assertion that the particular office has no records of official foreign travel connected with a project involving cooperation with two African countries. The response does not establish whether records were held by another department or office, whether the query was transferred to a different public authority, or whether such travel did not occur. Those points remain unresolved in the material available.
Dubey said the refusal left him unable to understand how post-mortem reports of animals could have a bearing on national security. He argued that withholding the reports would make it difficult to establish the scientific causes of the cheetah deaths and determine accountability for lapses, if any. He also urged the Union environment ministry and the state forest department to place the post-mortem reports in the public domain and disclose public expenditure on official foreign tours.
The department’s position, as reported, rests on the fact that Project Cheetah involved sensitive arrangements with foreign countries. That may explain why some diplomatic or operational documents could require protection. But the RTI reply does not distinguish between different categories of information. A memorandum of understanding, diplomatic communication or security-related operational detail is not necessarily the same as a veterinary post-mortem report. The supplied response does not show whether the department considered partial disclosure, redaction or separation of sensitive material from scientific findings.
This is the institutional question at the centre of the controversy. Transparency systems work not only by requiring authorities to disclose records, but also by requiring them to explain exemptions with enough precision for citizens to understand the decision and, if necessary, challenge it. A bare reference to a statutory clause can make the process formally defensible while leaving the substantive reasoning opaque.
The issue is particularly important for a rewilding programme that depends on scientific monitoring. Cheetahs were transported from Africa to India as part of an ambitious effort to reintroduce the species. Once animals are moved across thousands of miles and placed in a new ecological and administrative setting, records about their health and deaths become part of the evidence used to assess the programme. The source material does not provide the causes of death or the number of animals involved in the RTI request, so those facts cannot be independently assessed here. What is clear is that the department has not made the requested autopsy details available through the route described in the report.
The absence of publicly accessible findings has consequences beyond one RTI applicant. Scientific and conservation programmes require a chain of records: transport documentation, veterinary assessments, field observations, mortality reports and institutional decisions. Without access to relevant findings, outside observers cannot easily distinguish between natural mortality, disease, stress, injury, environmental conditions or management failures. The report does not establish that any particular cause was responsible for the deaths, nor does it establish that officials committed lapses. It establishes instead that the refusal has prevented those questions from being examined through the requested documents.
The foreign-tour query raises a related issue about administrative record-keeping. The Kuno office said no records were available, but the response came from that office alone. It therefore does not establish that no records exist anywhere in the state forest department, the Union environment ministry or another authority connected with the project. Nor does the supplied material show whether the application was transferred to an office more likely to hold the information. The difference between “no records available in this office” and “no such records exist” is significant for public accountability.
Project Cheetah’s institutional structure makes this distinction more important. The programme sits at the intersection of central government policy, state-level forest administration, protected-area management and international cooperation. Responsibilities are distributed across institutions rather than concentrated in a single local office. When a local public information officer responds to a request involving international cooperation, the quality of the response depends partly on whether records are properly catalogued and whether the application reaches the authority responsible for the relevant information.
The RTI Act provides exemptions, but it also creates a framework through which citizens can seek records from public authorities. In this case, the reported response invokes the protection available under Section 8(1)(a), while the department’s reasoning beyond that citation has not been reported. Senior Kuno officials did not respond to repeated calls and text messages seeking comment, according to the report. That leaves the public without a fuller explanation of the department’s interpretation of the provision.
The timing added symbolic significance to the exchange. The response reached Dubey by email on October 12, the day marking 21 years since the RTI Act came into force. The timing does not alter the legal position, but it highlights the contrast between the purpose of a transparency law and a response that, on the facts reported, provides limited reasoning for withholding records about a public conservation programme.
The available evidence supports a narrow conclusion. The Madhya Pradesh forest department has refused access to the requested Kuno cheetah autopsy reports by invoking a national-security exemption, while the Kuno divisional forest officer’s office has said it has no records of officials’ foreign tours related to Project Cheetah. The material does not establish whether the exemption would withstand a detailed legal challenge, whether other authorities hold the records, or what the autopsy reports contain.
Those unresolved points define what should be monitored next: whether the forest department provides a fuller justification, whether the Union environment ministry responds to the demand for disclosure, whether the RTI applicant challenges the decision, and whether records on official foreign travel can be located through another public authority. Until then, the dispute remains less a debate over one set of wildlife documents than a test of how a nationally important, internationally coordinated public programme explains its decisions to the public.
