The Supreme court on Tuesday allowed the Centre to notify within a week its fresh guidelines on tiger conservation and indicated that it may modify its July 24 order staying all tourism activities in the reserved areas across the country.

A bench of justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar, however, made it clear that the states, if aggrieved by the guidelines, are free to challenge it before the court. “We cannot either validate the guidelines or declare any of the guidelines ultra-vires of the Constitution,” the bench observed, while posting the matter for further hearing on October 16.