From Supreme Court Bench to Vantara Council: Justice Krishna Murari’s New Role Puts Judicial-Post-Retirement Safeguards Under Spotlight
Former Supreme Court judge Justice Krishna Murari has joined Vantara’s newly constituted independent Governing Council, a body that will oversee the organisation’s wildlife conservation, rescue, compliance and future governance. The council will also have the final say on future applications for importing wild animals. Justice Murari retired from the Supreme Court in July 2023 and is now one of its five voting members.
The appointment has attracted attention because Justice Murari had previously sat on Supreme Court benches dealing with litigation involving entities that Vantara now identifies as part of its animal-care and conservation operations. The issue is therefore less about the legality of his appointment—which has not been judicially found improper—and more about what institutional safeguards should apply when a retired judge subsequently assumes a governance role in an organisation connected to matters that came before his court.
One significant case was Kanhaiya Kumar v. Central Zoo Authority, decided on August 16, 2022, by a bench comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Krishna Murari. The petition challenged the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, including its permissions to acquire and import animals. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, finding no basis for interference with the Central Zoo Authority’s recognition of the centre as a zoo and rescue centre.
Justice Murari was also involved in litigation concerning the Radha Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust. In Muruly M.S. v. State of Karnataka, the Supreme Court dealt with challenges concerning the transfer, sale, gift or entrustment of wild and captive elephants to private entities, including the Trust. In March 2023, a bench comprising Justices Krishna Murari and Ahsanuddin Amanullah extended the jurisdiction of a high-powered committee dealing with wild-animal transfers and welfare across India.
Those proceedings are now relevant because Vantara’s present governance structure expressly encompasses both the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre and the Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust. The Wire has reported that Vantara identifies the two organisations as components of its wider conservation and animal-care operations.
The broader Vantara controversy was separately examined by a Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team in 2025. The Court had initially constituted the SIT after public-interest petitions raised allegations concerning animal acquisition, imports, welfare, financial matters and regulatory compliance. The Supreme Court order recorded that the allegations initially placed before it lacked probative material, but the Court nevertheless ordered a fact-finding inquiry considering the seriousness of the claims.
On September 15, 2025, the Supreme Court accepted the SIT’s conclusions that it found no violation of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, the Recognition of Zoo Rules, Central Zoo Authority guidelines, customs and foreign-trade laws, FEMA, PMLA, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita or CITES-related requirements. The Court consequently closed the complaints covered by the investigation.
The present governance question therefore arises against a record in which Vantara and its constituent entities have already been subject to substantial judicial scrutiny, while Justice Murari had participated in some earlier proceedings involving those entities or their predecessors. That history by itself does not establish bias, conflict of interest or impropriety. It does, however, make transparent conflict-management rules particularly significant.
A formal cooling-off period could be considered as a general institutional safeguard for retired judges joining private organisations whose activities substantially overlap with matters they previously adjudicated. Such a rule would need to be framed uniformly rather than targeted at any individual judge or organisation, and could specify the categories of post-retirement appointments covered and the length of the restricted period.
Recusal would provide a more immediate safeguard. If the council considers a matter involving a transaction, acquisition, dispute or regulatory question that was directly before a bench on which Justice Murari sat, a written recusal protocol could require him to disclose the connection and abstain from deliberation and voting. The recusal could be recorded in the council’s minutes so that the safeguard is independently verifiable.
Transparency could form a third layer. Because the Governing Council will have a role in approving future animal-import applications, publication of its conflict-of-interest policy, applicable due-diligence standards, broad reasons for significant decisions and records of recusals could strengthen public confidence without requiring disclosure of commercially or operationally sensitive information.
The composition of the new council already incorporates several external areas of expertise. John E. Scanlon AO, former Secretary-General of CITES, is its independent chair, while other members include Association of Zoos and Aquariums executive Craig Hoover, former Karnataka Chief Wildlife Warden Subhash K. Malkhede and conservation expert Greta F. Iori. Wildlife veterinarian Dr. Kushal Konwar Sarma is associated as an ex-officio, non-voting member.
Vantara has also announced that no application to import a wild animal will be made before June 5, 2027, after which such applications will require prior written approval of the Governing Council following an internal due-diligence process. That makes the council’s conflict and recusal framework particularly important because its future decisions will concern precisely the type of wildlife-acquisition issues that have previously been litigated.
The central institutional question is therefore not whether Justice Murari’s appointment itself proves wrongdoing—it does not—but whether the new council can demonstrate, through predetermined and publicly understandable safeguards, that decisions concerning Vantara’s past disputes and future acquisitions remain independent of the judicial history of any individual member.
For an organisation that has undergone Supreme Court scrutiny and now seeks to establish an independent governance structure, a documented cooling-off policy, mandatory disclosure of prior judicial involvement, case-specific recusals, independent review of sensitive decisions and meaningful transparency could provide a clear separation between past judicial functions and present organisational oversight.
