(IN): Really care for animals? Pay for upkeep, HC tells activist

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Really care for animals? Pay for upkeep, HC tells activist

 

Syed Khalique AhmedPosted: Jan 02, 2009 at 0318 hrs IST

Ahmedabad* *Bharat Kothari asked to return goats and sheep to

Rajasthan-based trader*

 

In a first judgement of its kind, Justice D H Waghela of the Gujarat High

Court on Tuesday directed animal rights activist Bharat Kothari to return

1,325 sheep and goats to a Rajasthan-based trader within a month. He also

asked Kothari to pay Rs 75,000 as maintenance cost of the animals to a

Patan-based pound.

 

Kothari had intercepted eight cattle laden truck on the outskirts of

Palanpur on June 17 on the pretext that the animals were being transported

in a cruel manner.

 

The judgement assumes significance as for the first time an animal rights

activist has been ordered to pay for the cost of maintenance of the animals

in the pound.

 

Earlier, activists got away with catching the animals and shifting them to

some pounds, registered or unregistered, with the pound operator bearing the

expenses on the animals.

 

Justice Waghela asked Kothari to undertake a medical check-up of all the

goats and sheep and ensure that they are in healthy state, before they are

handed back to the owner.

 

He also ordered Banaskantha district police authorities to investigate if

the Deesa police, where the offence was registered against the petitioners

(Dosukhan Samadkhan Sindhi and five others) on charges of cruelty to

animals, were involved in cognisable offence. He sought appropriate action

against them if they were found guilty.

 

According to the details of the case, as many as eight truckloads of goat

and sheep were being transported from Sanchor in Rajasthan to Ranip in

Ahmedabad when Kothari intercepted them and took the trucks to the Deesa

police station.

 

Around 7.30 pm the same day, the traders from Rajasthan sent a fax message

to the Banaskantha SP that animal rights activists had hijacked their cattle

laden trucks. They said the animals were being taken for sale in the cattle

market.

 

After two hours of the receipt of the message, the police registered a case

under Section 279 of IPC pertaining to rash driving, and Section 11(D) of

Cruelty against Animals Act, against the truck drivers and their associates.

No case was registered against the rights activist.

 

The police also handed over the animals to the custody of the activist as

they had no arrangement to keep them.

 

Advocate Mukul Sinha pleaded before the court that evidence with the drivers

proved that the animals were being transported in a legal and proper manner

and that the activists had no right to hijack the trucks.

 

He said the police was also not authorised to keep the animals in the

custody of activists.

 

Later, the police registered a case of robbery against an associate of

Kothari and arrested him on the directions of the court.

 

Justice Waghela also did not quash the FIR registered against Kothari on

charges of robbery pertaining to the seizure of animals.

 

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