Andhra Pradesh High Court Issues Notice On Plea Seeking To 'Protect Citizens From Stray Dog Attacks' By Banning People From Feeding Them Without Approval

A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, to protect the citizens from “attacks of stray dogs.”

The plea was filed by Parvatheneni Hari Krishna who prayed to immediately ban feeding stray dogs without any prior approval, start a portal / live Dashboard accessible to the public at all times to lodge information regarding stray dog attacks that are being fed, and remove stay dogs en-masse forthwith or within a reasonable time bound manner and to build special enclosures to keep the stray dogs till any legislature is implemented.

The petitioner also prayed that all those 'interested in feeding” stray dogs should pay a cost.

While the matter was being heard today, the counsel on record prayed that all dogs may be neutered and sterilized as an instant remedy and presented an RTI application showing how often the anti-rabies vaccination was administered in one month.

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice R. Ragunandan Rao who heard the case, noted that there is already a legislature that aims at curbing the dog attacks. It was also noted that locality-wise action was already being taken.

About the plea praying to enclose all street dogs in a specified area till a solution is come up with, the Bench held

“When a stray dog is picked up and put into a contained area, they tend to get more aggressive, but if you sterilize them, vaccinate them and release them back, they calm down. There is a lot of literature to prove this.”

The Bench also questioned whether a head count was being maintained for stray dogs, how many were vaccinated and neutered etc.

Two weeks were granted to submit a reply.

Case number: WP(PIL) 81 of 2024

Case title: Parvathaneni Hari Krishna vs. The State of Andhra Pradesh

Counsel for petitioner: ANANTH S

Counsel for Respondent: GP for General Administration.