NEW DELHI — The hunter who killed a man-eating tiger that stalked central India broke several laws, Indian officials said on Thursday, injecting new drama into an already contentious case and raising the possibility that the hunter could be prosecuted.

The hunter, Asghar Ali Khan, who comes from a wealthy family renowned for tiger hunting, was inexperienced and did not have to kill the tiger last month, according to a report by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, a government agency.

The tiger had killed more than a dozen villagers and had left residents of a bushy patch of Maharashtra State in terror, while the Indian authorities debated for months what to do. Wildlife activists urged them to leave the tiger alone or to tranquilize it and move it to a zoo; villagers insisted that the tiger be killed.

The authorities eventually decided to stage a complex, military-style hunt to capture the tiger — whom authorities called T-1 — or, if that was not possible, to kill it. Mr. Khan, the son of a legendary hunter, Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, was part of that operation.