16-05-2025
Form panel to address stray dog menace: Meghalaya HC
Shillong, May 16 (UNI) A division bench of the Meghalaya High Court has directed the state government to form a monitoring committee to address the stray dog menace in the state.
The bench comprising Chief Justice IP Mukerji and Justice Wanlura Diengdoh ordered that the monitoring committee must be formed within four weeks to oversee the implementation of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme in terms of rule 4 of the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2001. Thereafter, the committee shall discharge its functions according to rule 5 which outlines the responsibilities of the monitoring committee in implementing the programme.
The monitoring committee is tasked with overseeing the catching, transportation, sheltering, sterilization, vaccination, treatment, and release of sterilized, vaccinated, or treated dogs. It also has the authority to authorize euthanasia of critically ill, fatally injured, or rabid dogs.
The bench also directed the commissioners along with the district council and the local municipal authority shall carry out the court's orders in their districts.
'The state shall file a comprehensive affidavit with regard to the action taken before the returnable date,' the court directed. The next hearing has been scheduled for July 16.
Earlier, Kaustav Paul, the petitioner-in-person pointed out that these measures by the court might not prove to be effective.
According to Paul, the rules promulgated under sub-section (1) of section 38 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 have remained a piece of paper and not enforced.
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