(IN):Bombay HC okays culling of stray dogs

[Guest guest]

Indeed the cries of the homeless dogs (continuous barking) may seem a

nuisance to the public, but we animal people do qualify to understand that

this barking is their voice. A voice that mother nature has gifted every

species including the so called " superior ones " - human beings.

 

Now in this age if we get to hear this kind of a judgment where the natural

expression of a species is described as a nuisance, I am afraid this could

just be the beginning of an end.

 

An end to the trumpets of the Jumbo while ferrying tourists in the scorching

heat of a Jaipur summer.

An end to the roar of the Lion or the Tiger in captivity that can scare a

human child.

And many such ends.

 

I have every reason to believe that if the barking of a Dog can be termed a

nuisance then why not the other sounds of the animals?

Do we mean to say that we understand clearly what every other animal sound

is trying to communicate?

 

This sad and unscientific judgment should be challenged in the Supreme Court

and I am sure our organisations involved are definitely working on it.

 

A human mind was not insane when it someone called the Dog as a Man`s best

friend.

 

And we recently saw how Man`s best friends were fighting out the terrorists

in the last Mumbai terrorist attacks and saving human lives.

How many more examples do we need to prove that he is our best friend ???

 

And here is some advice to our animal people.

Please avoid using the words such as 'cruelty'. Replace that with

'terrorism'.

Replace 'culling' with 'murder' or 'killing'.

 

It is we who most of the times who are responsible for these kind

of judgments while fighting animal rights.

Either they allow animals to live with respect or they wipe them out from

the society in TOTAL.

There is certainly no genuine need for shops such as AWBI, Animal Welfare

Organisations etc to exist when we are handed judgments such as the one

mentioned in the news report below.

 

We heard our father of the Nation say, " A Nations's pride and progress is

judged by the way it treats its animals " , which was adopted by many

organisations worldwide.

And here we have a judgment which gives some idea of the way this nation is

progressing.

 

 

Azam Siddiqui

 

 

 

Link:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Bombay_HC_okays_culling_of_stray_dogs/\

articleshow/3864584.cms

 

Bombay HC okays culling of stray dogs

 

20 Dec 2008, 0541 hrs IST, Swati Deshpande, TNN

 

MUMBAI: Their bark may really end up being worse than their bite. The fate

of lakhs of dogs was sealed on Friday when the Bombay high court ruled in a

majority verdict that stray canines that 'create a nuisance' by, say,

barking too much, can be killed. The verdict applies not only to the

estimated 70,000 stray dogs in the city, but to canines in all of

Maharashtra and Goa.

 

A three-judge constitutional bench which was to have the final say on

whether stray dogs' days were numbered, went two to one in favour of the

discretionary execution of troublesome stray dogs, and also rabid, incurably

ill and mortally wounded dogs. The verdict, however, has been stayed for six

weeks, and no dogs will be killed until then.

 

The issue of troublesome strays has been dogging the high court for a

decade, raising the question of whether any provision in law permits civic

bodies to kill them. The high court heard a reference made by a judge while

sitting at the Goa bench to decide whether stray dogs should be put to sleep

or only sterilised. In 1994, the BMC stopped killing dogs and switched to

sterilisation to curb their population.

 

Justice S Radhakrishnan, who headed the bench, took a compassionate view of

'homeless and abandoned' strays and held that the discretionary powers of

the civic chief could only be exercised if the dogs were rabid, mortally

wounded or incurably ill__the three categories in which animals can be

killed in accordance with the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

 

But Justice Radhakrishnan expanded, with the assent of animal activists, the

definition of 'incurably ill' to include 'perenially violent dogs', since

these 'pose danger to human beings'. He said dogs can't be killed at

discretion, as permitted under the BMC Act, merely because they cause a

nuisance.

 

Justices Dilip Bhosale and Vijaya Kapse Tahilramani, the other two judges on

the bench, however, did not agree completely with Justice Radhakrishnan. In

the majority judgment they signed, they held that the civic chiefs of Mumbai

and the municipalities in Maharashtra and Goa could use their discretionary

powers to kill " dogs which are found or reported to be a source of public

nuisance " .

 

The term 'nuisance' was dealt with at length by Justice Bhosale. He said

that in the canine context, it would mean " anything which endangers human

life or is injurious to public health " . Significantly, the majority view was

that " no hard and fast rules can be laid down for what constitutes nuisance,

but a continuously barking dog at night could well be called a permanent

source of nuisance " .

 

Significantly, under the BMC Act, even an abandoned pet dog of any pedigree,

if not claimed within three days of 'creating nuisance' can be put to sleep

under the discretionary powers of the civic chief.

 

The high court heard detailed and passionate arguments for days from animal

rights activists__including In Defence of Animals, Welfare of Stray Dogs and

the Goa-based Norma Alvares__and from the central, Maharashtra and Goa

governments as well as the BMC. It then came out with its 156-page judgment,

which finally went against the dog lovers' arguments.

 

The court upheld the BMC's argument that its existing powers under the act

could be enforced to put down dogs which proved to be a nuisance. The civic

chief 'may' put a dog to sleep for causing nuisance, but it is not a

mandatory power.

 

The debate essentially was whether the Animal Birth Control Rules under the

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, which sought to control the dog

population and rabies through sterilisation, were superior to the BMC

provisions which permitted discretionary killing. Justice Radhakrishnan went

in for a harmonious construction and said the BMC act could only be

implemented subject to the PCA act, while the majority judges held that the

civic laws could be implemented on their own and were not diluted because of

Animal Birth Control rules.

 

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