To resolve the street dogs issue, use reason and compassion, not fear and cruel |
Over the past decade, street dogs have moved from being neighbourhood sentinels to legal battlegrounds, caught between compassion and commotion. Have you ever heard of any constitutional court in the world getting involved with issues relating to dogs? The Indian Supreme Court is an exception. Despite the pendency of several lakhs of cases, some very serious, dogs are getting special attention.
Some time ago, the Supreme Court picked up a case of dogs and that too, suo motu, on the basis of an unverified newspaper report. Furthermore, without hearing the lawyers on the other side, a basic requirement, the Court issued a direction that all street dogs should be picked up and confined in pounds. That would require an expenditure of thousands of crores, and that too in a few months, making it impossible to execute. Fortunately, the then Chief Justice of India constituted a new bench that is currently seized of the matter.
Yet another constitutional issue is that of the separation of powers, a part of the basic structure of the Constitution, laid down by the Court itself. Under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, the Animal Welfare Board (AWB) is the executive authority to issue guidelines regarding the management of animals, including dogs. It seems that the appropriate course would be for the Supreme Court, instead of issuing the guidelines itself, to direct the AWB to revise its existing ones, harmonising human needs on the one........