Švácha (left) and #38; Kučera. © The Telegraph 
The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Darjeeling pronounced the two guilty of violating the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as well as the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. The duo, in their early 50s, did not have any permits to show legal ownership of the specimens. In India on tourist visas, they were neither registered at the Foreigners' Registration Office nor had any permission to conduct research in the area, according to the police.
Kučera, a forester, has a website offering to sell insects, while Švácha is a senior scientist at the Institute of Entomology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (ASCR) and managing editor of the European Journal of Entomology.
Petr Švácha is a well known entomologist of Coleopteran group of insects, in particular larval morphology and biology of the Cerambycidae beetle. "He and his associate were perhaps unaware of the nitty-gritties of conducting research in India," says Dr Anil Kumar Dubey, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Entomology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Following the Czech scientists' arrest, entomologists across the world have urged upon relaxation in the biodiversity regulations in India. In all, 1210 scientists and researchers requested the Indian Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Chief Minister of West Bengal to pardon and release Švácha and his colleague in an online petition.
"Collaboration with national organizations on taxonomic study or forest-oriented research will have to follow the basic requirements in order to avoid such offences. Had Švácha been in a collaborative project, he could have avoided getting into the present situation," Dubey observes.
S. Ramani, an entomologist working in Manipur says it is unfortunate that the country's biodiversity act has not subjected to any review ever after it was made. "It is very unfortunate that Dr. Švácha got stuck in this. There is a need to protect our biodiversity but there is a very thin line between exploitation and scientific study," he says.
Others are learning a lesson from the episode. "If I ever get the chance to go to India, I will definitely keep this in mind," says Gregory A. Evans from the US department of agriculture, Maryland. A whitefly and parasitiods taxonomist, he feels that international collaborations are extremely important since there is very little taxonomic expertise left across the world. "It is important for countries to protect their flora and fauna. But I wish there was an international agreement allowing scientific research to be freely conducted so that the few remaining taxonomists can work together with foreign collaborators," he says.
