The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered status quo on shifting of a “man-eater” tiger known as T24 or Ustaad, from the Ranthambhore National Park in Rajasthan to a zoo. The tiger, which had reportedly mauled a security guard to death earlier this month, is being sought to be shifted from the wild into captivity owing to alleged pressure from the tourism lobby thriving around the national park. A vacation bench of Justices A. K. Sikri and U.U. Lalit noted that the matter was listed before the Rajasthan high court on May 28 and said there shall be a status quo with respect to shifting of the tiger till the high court takes a decision. The bench passed this interim order on a petition filed against the relocation after the Rajasthan government shifted tiger T-24 (aka Ustaad) from Ranthambore to the Sajjangarh biological park in Udaipur. T-24 is currently being kept confined in a 10,000 square feet enclosure at Sajjangarh. The petitioner, Chandra Bhal Singh, a Pune resident and a tiger lover, sought the apex court’s intervention after the Rajasthan high court refused to give an urgent hearing to his PIL on the issue. The Delhi high court had earlier dismissed the petition on the ground of lack of jurisdiction. Forest officials said the move to shift the tiger was taken after it mauled to death a 44-year-old forest guard. T24 had also allegedly attacked three other people over the last eight years. According to reports, the tiger has stopped eating after it was shifted out of the reserve forest. The tiger was reportedly shifted out “abruptly and discreetly” even as the forest ministry was in the process of setting up a committee to examine the decision.Mr. Singh pleaded in his petition that the wildlife department of Jaipur had failed to take requisite permission under section 12 of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) before proceeding to translocate the tiger from the reserve. Terming Ustaad had been given “capital punishment without a fair trial”, he said there was no forensic evidence that the particular tiger had killed the forest guard and three other people.The decision for sudden shifting is a U-turn from the stand maintained by the government till last Friday when Rajasthan Minister of State for Forests Raj Kumar Rinwa had said that T24 would not be shifted to a zoo or a park till a committee of experts submitted a report, he added.