Madras & Delhi courts rule on dog breeding & feeding

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

 

 

Madras & Delhi courts rule on dog breeding & feeding

 

COIMBATORE, DELHI--High Court verdicts rendered five days

apart in Chennai and Delhi in mid-December 2009 were hailed by media

nationwide as among the most significant for dogs since Maneka Gandhi

vs. Delhi in 1992.

In the 1992 case, recalled Utkarsh Anand of the Indian

Express, " the Delhi High Court held that street dogs are a part of

the city, and just beng classified as strays does not mean they

should be killed. The court accepted that sterilization and

vaccination of dogs is the only scientific and humane solution to the

so-called problem of street dogs. "

The verdict established the legal foundation for the Indian

national Animal Birth Control program, introduced in December 1997

but still just being phased into existence in much of the country.

The legal validity of the ABC program was definitively upheld

by the Bombay High Count in December 2008, after a decade of

contradictory verdicts by lower courts. But the Delhi and Bombay

High Court rulings of 1992 and 2008 left unclear when the behavior of

dogs and people feeding or harboring them can become an actionable

nuisance.

Madras High Court Justice S. Tamilvanan on December 23, 2009

rejected the contention of Coimbatore dog breeder D. Vikram that the

corpus of Indian dog law affirms his claimed right to keep a large

number of dogs, despite the objections of three neighbors, all of

whom have dogs themselves. A lower court had ordered Vikram to

remove the dogs.

Ruled Justice Tamilvanan, " It has been clearly established

that the petitioner is keeping large number of dogs, without

obtaining a license, for commercial purposes, and also caused noise

pollution and a hazardous atmosphere in the residential area of the

respondents. " These conditions, Tamilvan found, were the cause for

the dogs being evicted, not the mere fact that Vikram kept dogs.

Though Tamilvan in essence ruled only against keeping dogs in

" puppy mill " or " hoarder " conditions, the Tamilvan ruling was widely

misreported as an anti-dog verdict--much as the December 2008 Bombay

High Court verdict in favor of ABC was misreported by many of the

same media.

" Two major local satellite TV channels, Sun TV and Kalaignar

TV, have given their own twist to the tale, " e-mailed Bangalore

activist Gopi Shankar, " Both of them are owned or backed by the

ruling Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam party. " Word from Coimbatore,

Shankar said, was that the judgment " is being used by neighbors to

harass pet keepers. In some areas of Coimbatore, such as

Vadavalli, " Shankar said, " the police have been going from house to

house asking people how many dogs they have. "

" It is not what the judge said but what the media is wrongly

reporting that is a major cause for alarm, " responded Blue Cross of

India chief executive Chinny Krishna, from Chennai. " The judge

ruled that no one has a right to keep pets in residential areas at

the cost of being a nuisance to others. We all must promote

responsible guardian care. "

Earlier, Delhi High Court Justice V.K. Jain on December 18,

2009 recognized on behalf of dog feeder Simmy Malhotra, who fed dogs

as part of an ABC program, that, " The purpose of feeding dogs is to

keep them confined to a particular place, so as to subject them to

sterilization, vaccination, and re-vaccination. "

Justice Jain asked the Animal Welfare Board of India to

identify suitable sites for feeding dogs in ABC program areas, in

consultation with residents' associations and humane societies that

provide ABC services. The Delhi police, Jain added, " will ensure

that no harm is caused to volunteers of animal welfare organizations

feeding dogs in these localities, provided that they feed the dogs

only during hours to be specified by the Animal Welfare Board, " at

the specified sites.

In August 2009 Delhi High Court Justice Rajiv Shakdher issued

an earlier order to police to ensure the safety of ABC program dog

feeders, after petitioner Namrata Chanda and six others alleged that

they had been assaulted by dog-haters. Despite Shakdher's order,

the Times News Network reported, " advocate Jasmine Damkewala was [on

Gandhi's birthday] assaulted and had her car smashed by residents for

feeding stray dogs. "

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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