Sources have revealed that the Forest department, which is armed with rules and regulation under the amended Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, to straightaway arrest Khan and the other accused, has decided not to send any more notices to the five accused, as neither has the state government given it permission sought long ago to send its officials to Mumbai, nor has it allowed the department to take further action on its own.

The sources added that the department has virtually closed the case also because proceeding further would mean their own top officials would face severe departmental action.

“The case hasn’t been closed yet. Since it is very old we have sought guidance from the headquarters,” said R L Meena, conservator of forests for the Kutch circle, on Monday. He said his department would not be sending any more notices to Khan and the others as sufficient notice had been given to them to defend themselves.

He said that Aamir Khan’s representative had recently demonstrated to them through a screening that the dead chinkara in Lagaan was digitally produced and wasn’t an actual chinkara. Meena said the inquiry committee had seen it but thought it was not convincing.

V T Korvadia, deputy conservator of forests for eastern Kutch and chief of the inquiry committee, said there was still a strong case against Khan for his continuous “disobedience” or failure to appear in person as required under the Act.

The chinkara is a protected species and is a Schedule I animal under the Act. One chinkara in the protection of the department was taken from the Forest department premises to Sumarasar during the shooting of Lagaan in 2000, without the permission of the state chief conservator of forests in 2000, according to the records of the Forest department.

The film’s producers had sent a formal request on September 16,1999 to the deputy conservator of forests (east). The request was turned down by G A Patel, the then chief conservator of forests on November 11,1999. The animal was handed over despite this refusal.

The animal died after a few months and a postmortem was also carried out. But no report is available on record.