The Environment Ministry cut a two-year extension granted to prominent scientist and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) dean Y V Jhala on his superannuation on February 28, 2022, to one year on Tuesday.

According to a ministry order, the vacancy created by Jhala’s early retirement would be filled through the ongoing process of recruiting scientists.

Since 2009, Jhala has been laying the technical groundwork for the big cheetah project. He was a part of the Cheetah Task Force, which was established in 2010 by naturalist M K Ranjitsinh. It is widely assumed that his employment during WWI was extended in order to maintain him in charge of the cheetah project. However, Jhala was dropped from the government’s new cheetah task force in September 2022, just days after escorting the first batch of cheetahs from Namibia to India.

Jhala had prepared the first report on potential cheetah release sites after then Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh entrusted them with the survey in 2009. In January 2022, he was the lead author when India finalised the Cheetah Action Plan. Jhala had also been leading technical negotiations with wildlife biologists in Namibia and South Africa.