Frame Guidelines For Early Rehabilitation, Preventing Multiplication Of Stray Dogs: Patna High Court Directs State Govt, DGP

In an attempt to manage the population of stray dogs, the Patna High Court has directed the Chief Secretary, the Director General of Police and the Secretary of the Panchayati Raj Department to frame guidelines for early rehabilitation of stray dogs as well as to prevent their multiplication.

"The District Administration will do well to issue notices to its officers both in the Revenue and Police Department as also those in the Local Administration, to keep a watchful eye on the stray dogs and prevent multiplication and early rehabilitation on spotting of stray dogs and thus attempting to nip the problem at the budding stage," the Court said while dealing with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea to stop the killing of stray dogs by ‘inhuman method of shooting’.

Essentially, the petitioner in person Akrity Aishwarya had filed the PIL plea for a direction to the state government to put in place alternate methods to tackle the menace of stray dogs. The Petitioner was aggrieved after 24 stray dogs were reportedly shot dead in Begusarai allegedly pursuant to a Government order.

On Court's direction, the Sub Divisional Magistrate, Teghra, Begusarai filed a counter affidavit pointing out the various instances of human-animal conflict, especially with respect to stray dogs having attacked and even killed human beings in and around Begusarai.

It was also stated that the menace of attacking dogs had increased uncontrollably, and the people complained to the District Administration and also to the Human Rights Commission as such dogs were targeting women, children and the infirm and due to this, the Human Rights Commission had issued directions to the District Administration to take appropriate steps, however, due to the growing menace, the citizens themselves eliminated the dogs.

Taking into account the counter affidavit, the bench of Chief Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Partha Sarthy observed that human-animal conflict is a complex issue that cannot be settled in one stroke. The Court also noted that there was no order of the district administration warranting any interference by the Court.

However, it did direct the district administration to issue orders as aforesaid and further asked the DGP, and the State Government to frame guidelines in the matter.

Significantly, before parting with the order, the Court noted that the counter affidavits filed by the State often contain irrelevant matters and repetition of the pleadings in the writ petition. This observation was made after the Court perused the counter affidavit filed in the instant matter wherein a provision in the statute was reproduced in 15 pages (out of the total 32 pages of the counter affidavit).

"We have also come across counter affidavits where the entire reliefs sought by the petitioners are extracted and the documents produced by the petitioners again produced along with the counter affidavit; which is a useless exercise and this unnecessarily burdens the records of the case. 9. We hope that the Office of the Advocate General would ensure that the counter affidavits are filed precisely to the point, answering the contentions in the writ petition, without unnecessary extraction by way of repetition and production of documents which are already part of the record," the Court further said as it directed that the copy of the order be communicated to the Secretary of the Advocate General’s office also.

With this, the writ petition was posted for hearing on November 29, 2023, for the affidavits of the Chief Secretary, the Director General of Police and the Secretary of the Panchayati Raj Department regarding the framing of the guidelines.

Case title - Akrity Aishwarya vs The State of Bihar and Others

LL Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Pat) 98

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