ANIMAL WELFARE BOARD OF INDIA vs PEOPLE FOR ELIMINATION OF STRAY TROUBLES

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2016 Supreme(SC) 789

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
(RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS)
DIPAK MISRA, UDAY UMESH LALIT, JJ.
ANIMAL WELFARE BOARD OF INDIA – PETITIONERS
Versus
PEOPLE FOR ELIMINATION OF STRAY TROUBLES & ORS. – RESPONDENTS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s). 691 of 2009 With SLP(C) No. 1627, 1740, 11467 & 13004 of 2009, SLP(C) No. 13772 of 2012, SLP(C) No. 4453, 5899, 5900, 17112 of 2013, S.L.P.(C)...CC No. 16880 of 2015, W.P.(C) No. 805, 808, 599 of 2015, S.L.P.(C)...CC No. 15931, 16985, 17078, 17084, 17110, 17146, 17153, 17271, 17289 & 17292 of 2016
Decided On : 04-10-2016

Advocates Appeared:
For the Petitioners:Ms. Anjali Sharma, Hardeep Singh Anand, Rohan Thawani, Anand Daga, B.S. Banthia, Sachin Daga, Sudhanshu S. Choudhari, Shreekant N. Terdal, Krishnan Venugopal, Sr. Adv., Udai Rathore, Ajit Sharma, Kunal Verma, Nirnimesh Dube, Shubham Jaiswal, (For M/s. Lex Regis Law Offices), Raj Panjwani, Sr. Adv., Ms. Aparna Bhat, Mayank Sapra, Rishi Kesh, Anupam Tripathi, (Petitioner-in-person), Ms. Akanksha Pandit, V.K. Biju, Ms. Jasmine D., Advocates.
For the Respondents:A.K. Panda, Sr. Adv., Ms. Sadhana Sandhu, R.K. Verma, Gurmeet Singh Makkar, Ms. Pinky Anand, ASG, Ms. V. Mohana, Sr. Adv., A.K. Panda, Sanjay Kumar Pathak, Ms. Sadhana Sandhu, Ms. Rashmi Malhotra, Mohan Prasad Gupta, R.R. Rajesh, Ms. Soumya Rathore, Ms. Saudamini Sharma, D.S. Mahra, G.S. Makker, Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sr. Adv., Ms. Vanshaja Shukla, Ms. Ambika Nijjar, Ms. Gauri Malnkhi, Dinesh Kumar Garg, Guntur Prabhakar, Ms. Prerna Singh, Narendra Kumar, Ms. Mahima Singh, C. Kannan, Naveen Kumar, Abhishek Singh, Kunal A. Chemma, AAG, Yogesh K. Ahirrao, Nishant Ramakantrao Katneshwarkar, Pahlad Singh Sharma, Joydeep Mazumdar, Rohit Dutta, Parijat Sinha, Sanjiv Sen, Sr. Adv., Virag Gupta, Praveen Swarup, Mukul Singh, Rakesh Kumar, Ranjan Mukherjee, K.V. Kharlyngdoh, Shreekant N. Terdal, Sangram S. Saron, Shree Pal Singh, V.N. Raghupathy, Lagnesh Mishra, Parikshit P. Angadi, Ms. Anushree Prashit Kapadia, Ms. Aruna Mathur, Ysuf Khan, Avneesh Arputham, Ms. Anuradha Arputham, (M/s Arputham Aruna & Co.), K.V. Jagdishvaran, Rajiv Ranjan, Chand Qureshi, M.P. Siddiqui, Ms. G. Indira, Ms. K. Enatoli Sema, Edward Belho, Amit Kumar Singh, K. Luikang Michael, Amol Chitale, Nirnimesh Dube, Shubham Jaiswal, (For M/s. Lex Regis Law Offices), Ms. Ruchi Kohli, Atul Yeshwant Chitale, Sr. Adv., Mrs. Suchitra Atul Chitale, Ms. Shivangi Khanna, Tanvi Kakar, Nikhil Nayyar, Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, G. Prakash, Sunil Fernandes, Ms. Astha Sharma, Ms. Mithu Jain, Puneeth K.G., Nikesh Tyagi, Vishwendra Verma, Pranav Verma, Anupam Tripathi, Ms. Vishnu Sharma, Ms. Aakannksha Pandit, Prashant Bhushan, Siddhartha K. Garg, V. Giri, Sr. Adv., C.K. Sasi, Ms. Manukrishnan G., E.C. Vidya Sagar, Subhash Chandra Sagar, Ms. Jennifer John, Anjali Sharma, Ms. Sujeeta Srivastava, Kunal Chatterji, Ms. Maitrayee Banerjee, Aditya Dhawan, Ms. Kiran Dhawan, Varinder Kumar Sharma, Sapam Biswajit Meitei, Naresh Kumar Gaur, Ms. Linthoongambi Thongam, Vikramjit Banerjee, P.S. Sudheer, Rishi Maheshwari, Ms. Mayuri Nayyar, Bharat Sood, Ms. Shruti Jose, Anil Grover, AAG, Noopur Singhal, Sanjay Kumar Visen, Gopal Singh, Rituraj Biswas, Ms. Varsha Poddar, R. Venkatramani, Sr. Adv., V.G. Pragasam, S. Prabu Ramasubramanian, Sameer Singh, Yashraj Singh Bundela, B. Balaji, Muthuvel Palani, A. Arvind, Rudreshwar Singh, Samir Ali Khan, Ms. Hemantika Wahi, Ms. Aagam Kaur, Ms. Mamta Singh, Yoga Maya, Ms. Anitha Shenoy, Ms. Srishti Agnihotri, Ms. Surabhi Aggarwal, Ms.Dharni Subramaniam, Mishra Saurabh, Ankit Kumar Lal, Advocates.

Headnote:Stray dog menace – Animal Welfare Board preparing a module, one aspect pertainming to 'Implementation Framework for street dog population management, rabies eradication and reducing man-dog conflict’ – Matter adjourned to 17.11.2016. (Para 2, 10)

ORDER

On 9.3.2016, after referring to the earlier order dated 18.11.2015 and various other aspects, this Court has expressed the following view :

"We will be failing in our duty if we do not make a note of the submissions of both the sides which are extreme in nature, for example, emphasis and stress have been laid that due to stray dogs, there has been threat to life, health, movement and sometimes security of the human beings. On the other hand, it has been highlighted that the stray dogs are being annihilated without any justifiable reason. As advised at present, we do not intend to say anything on the said counts today.

On the last occasion, we had asked the Chief Secretary of each of the States and competent authorities of the Union Territories to act in letter and spirit of the previous order. As has been indicated earlier, responses have been filed by the State of Orissa, N.D.M.C., South Delhi Municipal Corporation and B.M.C., Mumbai. facts and circumstances in entirety, we Considering the direct the Chief Secretary of each of the States, either himself or through the Secretary of Health and the competent authorities of the Union Territories to send the report as regards the implementation of the Act and the Rules to the Board within six weeks hence. Ms. Anjali Sharma, learned counsel appearing for the Animal Welfare Board, on receipt of the report, shall apprise Gopal Subramanium, learned senior counsel appearing for the Animal Welfare Board and the Board shall file a module keeping in view the parameters of the Act and the Rules for appropriate implementation. Needless to emphasize, the Union of India shall be at liberty to work out the module. Learned counsel appearing for the parties can also give their suggestions after the module is filed in Court.

The report submitted to the Board by the States and the other competent authorities shall be filed before this Court through their Standing Counsel. Copies of the writ petition and the special leave petitions shall be supplied to all the concerned by Ms. Anjali Sharma, appearing for the Animal Welfare Board. learned counsel The order passed today along with the previous order be sent by the Registry of this Court to the Chief Secretaries of the States and the administrator of the Union Territories so that they can do the needful in the matter.

At this juncture, Dushyant A. Dave, learned senior counsel has submitted that the said authorities should indicate in the report as to how many deaths have occurred due to dog bites and what steps have been taken. Additionally, it is suggested by him that the report must also indicate the number of sterilization that have taken place and the resources available on the said front. We direct all the authorities to include the same as a part of the same in the report.

As we have given time for the submission of report within six weeks, we give further four weeks time to file the module by the Board.

At this juncture, Rakesh Kumar, learned counsel appearing for the South Delhi Municipal Corporation that they have a problem in dealing with the stray dogs because of certain communication received by the Delhi International Airport Private Limited (DIAL). P.S. Narasimha, learned Additional Solicitor General and Gopal Subramanium, learned senior counsel appearing for the Board, shall see to it that the problem is sorted out.

We will be failing in our duty if we do not note the submission of Dushyant A. Dave that though the Act and Rules provide for sterilization of dogs so that safety of the human beings is not jeopardized, yet they are not being sterilized by the authorities, either for lack of funds or due to apathy.

Regard being had to the provisions governing the field, we direct that the dogs which are required to be sterilized or vaccinated, the procedure shall be carried out in accordance with the Act and Rules and no organization shall create any kind of obstacle or impediment in the same. It shall be the obligation of the Board to oversee

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