Hyderabad: Failing to curb the dog bite incidents in the city, the Telangana High Court on Thursday questioned Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) officials on the continual wandering of stray dogs on the streets despite their claims that the animals were being moved to shelters and sterilised.
While hearing a suo motu public interest petition over the death of a four-year-old boy, in an attack by stray dogs in Amberpet last month, a bench of chief justice Ujjal Bhuyan and justice N. Tukaramji asked GHMC counsel Katika Ravindhar Reddy, “Don’t dogs ever bite you (GHMC staff)?”
The court earlier ordered the civic body to submit details of the steps that they have taken up to curb the stray dogs wandering in the city.
According to an affidavit submitted on Thursday by Katika Ravindhar Reddy, counsel for GHMC, shelter houses were prepared to relocate the animals while Ravindhar Reddy also informed the court that sterilisation was an ongoing process.
The bench of judges further held, “Such situations should not occur in a civilised community,” when Ravindhar Reddy informed Rs 8 lakh has been paid as compensation to the family of Pradeep, the victim of a stray dog attack in Amberpet.
Meanwhile, advocate Mamidi Venu Madhav filed an impleading petition in the suo moto case, claiming that Animal Birth Control for stray dogs has been taking place since 1996, using sterilisation and other ways and that millions of dollars have been spent on it.
“Nevertheless, no beneficial outcomes have been noticed thus far,” the advocate said, accusing bureaucrats of swindling the money.
An advocate Venu Madhav told the court that such occurrences of dog attacks leading to the death of innocent kids happen only because the authorities appear to intervene but fail to act.
The court granted the implead motion and instructed the member-secretary of the Telangana State Legal Services Authority to visit the GHMC-managed stray dog shelter homes and submit a report by June 8.
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