Taking cognisance of alarming rise in dog bites incidents within institutional areas like educational centres, hospitals, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered the state authorities to move stray dogs found within premises of these institutions to designated shelters. It also asked them to prevent ingress of stray dogs in premises of government, private educational institutions, hospitals. The top court also instructed the authorities to ensure that the stray dogs picked up from institutions like educational centres, hospitals are not released at the same location.
The SC also asked them to take steps for removal, relocation of stray animals found on highways to designated shelters. Besides these, the apex court further ordered the authorities to undertake joint drive to identify stretches of highways where stray animals are frequently found.
It has also asked NHAI to to ensure removal of cattle and other stray animals from highways, expressways.
The court has asked the states to file a compliance report within eight weeks, and fixed January 13 as the next hearing date.
The stray dogs case
The order comes days after the court expressed anger as the states and Union Territories failed to file compliance affidavits in connection with its stray dogs order of August 22. A three-judge special bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria noted that only the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and states of West Bengal and Telangana have filed their compliance affidavits in pursuance to the apex court’s order.
The bench directed the chief secretaries of states and Union Territories, other than West Bengal and Telangana, to appear before it on November 3 to explain why compliance affidavits were not filed in the stray dogs case. The court said its order contained everything.
“Continuous incidents are happening and the image of the country is being shown as down in the eyes of foreign nations. We are also reading news reports,” Justice Nath was quoted as saying by Livelaw.
Chief Secretaries had later apologised, assuring the bench of action.
In its order on August 22, the top court had expanded the scope of the stray dogs case beyond the confines of Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) and ordered that all states and Union Territories be made parties in the matter.
Then the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) said that relocation Delhi’s nearly one million stray dogs to permanent shelters could drain its finances, with early estimates putting the daily bill at Rs 11 crore. According to reports, the civic body said that feeding, transporting, and caring for each dog would cost at least Rs 110 a day.