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‘Meat-eaters call themselves animal lovers’: What govt told SC in stray dog case
Nobody is an animal hater, said Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the government during Supreme Court hearing of cases relating to stray dogs.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the government during Supreme Court hearing of cases relating to stray dogs, said he has seen people posting videos of eating meat and then claiming to be animal lovers.
Backing the Supreme Court order of relocation of Delhi-NCR stray dogs, Tushar Mehta said “there is a very loud vocal minority and silent suffering majority.” Follow SC stray dogs case hearing live updates here
“Thirty seven lakhs a year, 10,000 per day. This is dog bites. Rabies deaths - 305 deaths for the same year, WHO's modelling shows much higher number,” LiveLaw quoted Tushar Mehta as saying.
Nobody is an animal hater, he added.
Hearing a suo motu case over dog bites in the national capital on Monday, August 11, the Supreme Court ordered the picking up of all canines from the streets of Delhi-NCR within eight weeks, directing authorities to create shelters to house them and not release them back.
In a warning, the court said, “If any person or organisation comes in the way of picking up stray dogs, action will be taken.”
Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai on Wednesday withdrew the suo motu case on stray dogs from the bench of justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan.
The new bench, led by Justice Vikram Nath, took up the matter on Thursday and reserved its order on the interim prayer seeking a stay on the August 11 directions.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said during the Thursday hearing that people are unable to send the children out to play in the open due to the stray dog menace.
“This is my stand not the government's stand. Your lordships will have to find a solution. Ultimately the solution is not in the Rules. A vocal minority view as against the silent suffering majority view,” Mehta told the Supreme Court bench.
In the August 11 order, the earlier Supreme Court bench of justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan had emphasised that infants and young children should not, under any circumstances, fall prey to stray dogs.
"We are issuing these directions keeping larger public interest in mind," the bench had said.
