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Supreme Court slams Maneka Gandhi over criticism of its orders on stray dogs, says she committed contempt
The bench said it was not initiating contempt proceedings against the former Union minister because of the court's magnanimity
The Supreme Court stopped short of initiating contempt-of-court proceedings against BJP leader and former Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Tuesday, over her remarks criticising its orders regarding management of stray dogs.
The SC bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria said the former minister has made "all kinds of comments" and “committed contempt of court”, reported news agency PTI. The bench said it was not initiating contempt proceedings because of its magnanimity.
Justice Mehta even asked her lawyer what budgetary allocation had Maneka Gandhi, as a former Union minister, helped in getting to eradicate the stray dog problem.
Maneka Gandhi has not yet reacted to these comments.
The bench said its remark on making dog feeders accountable — which came in for criticism from some quarters — was not made sarcastically but on a serious note.
It was on January 13 that the top court had said it will ask states to pay a "heavy compensation" for dogbite incidents and hold dog feeders accountable for such cases.
Questioning senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who appeared for Gandhi, the bench reportedly said, "You said the court should be circumspect in its remark; but have you asked your client what kind of remarks she has made?… She has made all kinds of remarks against everybody without even thinking. Have you seen her body language?"
Ramachandran replied that he has appeared even on behalf of terrorist Ajmal Kasab; and that budgetary allocation is a policy matter.
"Ajmal Kasab did not commit contempt of court but your client has," Justice Nath remarked, as per the PTI report.
The hearing in the case was still underway at the time of filing of this report.
The court also flagged concerns over the non-implementation of norms on stray animals for the last five years.
Maneka Gandhi has in the past argued against a coercive approach against stray dogs.
“The problem was never the dogs. It was, and continues to be, the utter collapse of civic systems meant to manage them. Municipal sterilisation programmes exist only on paper. Waste lies scattered across our streets and campuses. Hospitals dump food and biomedical waste in the open. And when dogs gather where food and filth do, the response is not to fix the cause, but to punish the symptom,” she has said, arguing that the court should have “paused to look at the real condition of our public institutions”.
“Asking a broken system to perform a miracle is not a solution. It is an admission of failure,” she has written.
