NEW DELHI, Aug 13: “I will look into it,” Chief Justice of India B R Gavai assured on Wednesday when a plea relating to stray dogs was mentioned for urgent hearing in the Supreme Court.
The plea by the Conference for Human Rights (India) was mentioned before a bench of the chief justice and Justice K Vinod Chandran by a lawyer.
Another bench has already passed an order in relation to stray dogs, the CJI pointed out.
On August 11, a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan observed that instances of dog bites had given rise to an “extremely grim” situation and ordered the permanent relocation of all strays in Delhi-NCR “at the earliest”.
On Wednesday, the lawyer referred to a May 2024 order passed by a bench led by Justice J K Maheshwari relegating petitions relating to the stray dog issue to respective high courts.
The CJI then assured that he will look into it.
The plea by Conference for Human Rights (India) claims the Animal Birth Control (Dog) Rules, 2001 mandating regular sterilisation and immunisation programmes for stray dogs to curtail their growing population are not being complied with.
In its August 11 ruling, the apex court also said dog shelters will have to be augmented over time and directed Delhi authorities to start with creating shelters of around 5,000 canines within six to eight weeks.Besides, the bench warned of strict action against an individual or organisation in case of any kind of obstruction in the relocation drive that might also prompt the court to initiate contempt proceedings.
BJP LEADER CALLS FOR NATIONWIDE IMPLEMENTATION
A meeting of all resident welfare associations (RWAs) in Delhi will be held soon at the Talkatora stadium to discuss further course of action in the wake of the Supreme Court order on stray dogs, BJP leader Vijay Goel said on Wednesday.
The former Union minister announced this while addressing a gathering at Mandi House.
The top court, in its August 11 order, directed the permanent relocation of stray dogs from Delhi NCR streets to shelters.
Goel, along with his supporters and members of RWAs, expressed gratitude towards the SC for making the streets and public spaces “safer” with its verdict and demanded that the Centre ensure implementation of the order.
The former Delhi BJP president said he started the movement against the menace of stray dog bites after the RWAs approached him for help.
And for the last two years, Goel and his nonprofit group, Lok Abhiyan, have been engaged with this movement, calling for government action to address the issue.
Goel has also been demanding compensation for victims of dog bites and changes in animal birth control rules to check the unregulated numbers of stray dogs.
He also trained guns at the animal lovers, alleging many of them were up in arms against the Supreme Court verdict because they were running NGOs for money.
Goel said that even though people largely supported the shifting of stray dogs to shelter homes, the “so-called” animal lovers were trying to “disrupt” it.
“If they truly love these dogs, why don’t they adopt them? Not a single so-called dog lover has adopted even one stray dog so far,” he said.
Even if sterilisation and vaccination drives are carried out rapidly, Goel said it will be inadequate to tackle around 8 lakh stray dogs on the streets and incidents of bites will continue.
“That is why the first step must be to remove the dogs from the streets and place them in shelters,” he said.
The BJP leader said just as the government acted swiftly during the COVID-19 pandemic and created health infrastructure on a large scale, it can build shelters for the stray dogs, provided it shows willpower.The Supreme Court order ensures that both the humans and the dogs are benefitted. (PTI)