V. SIVARAMAN NAIR, J.

( 1 ) THERE is conflict of perception of a problem, the problem of dealing with stray dogs in the twin Cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and remedial measures to be adopted to solve that problem, between an individual and a public authority and this conflict is carried to this Court for consideration and resolution by way of this writ petition, styled as Public Interest Litigation (PIL) under Article 226 of the Constitution. The petitioner is one J. Gopalan. He claims to be an Engineer by profession and he is a permanent resident of Hyderabad for the past 30 years. The petitioner has stated that he has filed this PIL to espouse the cause of the residents of the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

( 2 ) THE Respondent No. 1 is the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad, for short the Corporation ; the second respondent is Smt. Rachel Chatterjee who was the Commissioner of the Corporation at the relevant time and the third respondent is Blue Cross represented by its Chair-Person Smt. Amala Akkineni. After the writ petition was filed in this Court on 17-10-1994, the A. P. Jeeva-raksha Sangam represented by its Secretary Peela Ramakrishna was impleaded as additional respondent No. 4 to the writ petition by an order of this Court dated 2-3-1995 made in W. P. M. P. No. 3819/95.

( 3 ) IN this writ petition, the petitioner has prayed for a writ of mandamus for declaring the action of the first respondent in stopping the destruction of unlicensed stray dogs, as required under the provisions of sub-section (5) of Section 249 of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955 for short the Act and handing over the dog pound to the third respondent permitting them to release the stray dogs back into the streets after sterilising them as arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional.

( 4 ) THE facts pleaded by the petitioner in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition may be summarised briefly as under: Under sub-section (5) of Section 249 of the Act the Corporation is under an obligation to destroy unlicenced and unclaimed stray dogs. In pursuance of this statutory duty cast on the Corporation, the Corporation, earlier used to seize unlicenced stray dogs and cause them to be destroyed. The third respondent Blue Cross claims to be an Animal Welfare Organisation and that was established recently by Smt. Amala Akkineni, a former film actress. The said organisation has been taking up the cases of percieved cruelty to animals. In the issue of Hindu dated 18-7-1994 it was reported that the second respondent Smt. Rachel Chatterjee and Smt. Maneka Gandhi, the former Union Minister for State decided at a meeting to hand over the dog pound of the Corporation to the Blue Cross for being converted into a birth control centre for stray dogs and under the said agreement, according to Hindu, the stray dogs would be caught and handed over to the Blue Cross which will conduct sterilisation operations, inoculate and release the dogs back into their respective streets. It is also reported in Hindu that tags and marks would be put on dogs before releasing them back into their respective streets for the purpose of easy identification. It is also claimed, as per the press report, according to the second respondent and Smt. Maneka Gandhi adoption of this new method would result in reduction of stray dogs population at least by half in a period of three years and consequently the Corporation would be in a position to put an end to the inhuman method of destruction of unlicenced and unclaimed stray dogs. the second respondent, without due application of mind and without examining whether the new method suggested by Smt. Maneka Gandhi was viable and expedient, acceded to the method suggested by Smt. Maneka Gandhi and accorded permission to hand-over dog pound to the third respondent for being converted into a birth control centre for stray dogs. The second respondent did it with sole intention to appease smt. maneka Gandhi and S

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