Angry judgments are never sensible: Maneka Gandhi reacts to SC order on stray dogs

Reacting to the decision, she said the judgment has been given by someone who is in 'anger'.

Gandhi told ANI, "It is not a doable order... This is a very strange judgment given by someone who is in anger. Angry judgments are never sensible..."

She says, "... There is no single government-run shelter in Delhi. In how many shelters would you put 3 lakh dogs? You don't even have one. To make those shelters, you have to spend at least Rs 15 thousand crore...

"You'll have to find 3000 places for shelters in places where no one lives. How will you find these many places?... This can't be done in two months... You'll have to employ 1.5 lakh people to just be sanitation workers, which will again cost crores..."

Supreme Court order

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the shifting of all stray dogs in the Delhi-NCR region to shelter homes amid the rising cases of dog bites and people's death by rabies, media reports said.

The top court ruled that all stray dogs from the residential localities will have to be shifted to the shelters within eight weeks, and any organisation attempting to block it will face the strictest punishment.

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan passed the order while hearing the matter after taking note of a news report on deaths due to rabies following dog bites.

The court said it will only hear the Centre's argument and not from any dog lover or a third party in the case.

The court has ordered the Delhi government, the civic body MCD and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) to pick up all stray dogs from residential areas, colonies of Delhi-NCR and place them in shelters.

The adoption of stray dogs has also been barred by the top court.

The civic authorities in Delhi-NCR have been asked to set up dog shelters, relocate the stray dogs, depute professionals who can tackle, sterilise and immunise the dogs.

The court has asked the civic authorities to give an update on the steps they take.

Animal Bite Incident

From January to June this year, over 35,000 animal bite incidents have been reported from Delhi-NCR.

As per the official data produced by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), 49 cases of rabies have been reported in the same period, reports said.