Take stray dogs home, HC tells pet lovers

OBSERVING that fed on the goodies or food provided by the animal lovers, many of the stray dogs become insolent and get even more violent in their behaviour towards human beings in general and children in particular, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court has lashed out at ‘so called’ animal lovers or sympathisers and asked them to adopt such dogs, take them home or at least put them up in some good dog shelter homes.

The HC also asked pet lovers to bear all the expenses for their registration with municipal authorities and towards their maintenance, health and vaccination.

The division bench of Justice Sunil Shukre and Anil Pansare, after the intervention of Dhantoli Nagarik Mandal in a pending writ petition about stray dog menace, issued various directions to the authorities concerning capturing, sheltering and feeding of stray dogs.

The court directed that no citizen of Nagpur and areas surrounding it shall feed or make any attempt to feed stray dogs in public places, gardens etc. It also directed the Municipal Commissioner to ensure no such feeding at any place except the own homes of such persons.

“The NMC should impose a penalty not to be more than Rs. 200/- for every breach as per the resolution already passed by the civic body,” the court said.

The division bench came down heavily on the so-called friends of stray dogs for behaving in an irresponsible manner. “These citizens posing themselves as sympathisers and friends of stray dogs, leave their houses on two wheelers and by four wheelers carrying with them loads of food items meant for distribution amongst the street dogs and making their stops in different localities, offer food packets and different tidbits to stray dogs unmindful of the great harm that they are doing to the society,” the court said and added that these supposed friends of stray dogs do not realise the disastrous consequences of their charity.

“They must understand that real charity lies in taking complete care and not just feeding and then leaving poor creatures to fend for themselves. This is the most basic duty a benevolent person must perform if he has real compassion for stray dogs. But the so-called friends of stray dogs shy away from performing this basic duty of theirs and the result is uncontrolled growth in population and nuisance of stray dogs,” the court observed.

The Division bench also directed the Commissioner of Police and Superintendent of Police, Nagpur (Rural) to take necessary steps within their respective areas for controlling the menace of stray dogs/bitches in terms of Section 44 of the Maharashtra Police Act which empowers the police for destruction of stray dogs.

Section 44 of the Act requires the CP and SP to proclaim that if any stray dog found wandering during specified period in the street or in any public place, may be destroyed. There is also a provision for ordering detention of such dogs and either selling them or destroying them by adopting the procedure prescribed therein.

“The action that may be taken under Section 44 of the Maharashtra Police Act, may not be of the extreme nature of destruction of the stray dog but it can be at least in the nature of detention of the stray dog as per the procedure prescribed and then handing over the stray dog to the Monitoring Committee setup under rule 4 of the Rules, 2001 for their appropriate placement/ disposal in terms of the Rules,” the court said.

Citing the order of the Apex Court, dated October 12, 2022, the Court was of the view that permission can be granted to the NMC to go ahead with and implement its programme of birth control of stray dogs by utilising the amount of Rs. 17 crore. Further, the court directed the State Government to release the amount of Rs. 17 crore at the earliest and preferably within eight weeks from the date of the order.

Senior counsel Firdos Mirza appeared for the petitioners in both the writ petitions.

D P Thakre, Addl GP represented the State. Senior counsel Sudhir Puranik appeared for NMC while Dhantoli Nagarik Mandal was represented by Adv Ashwin Deshpande and Adv Aradhya Pande.