Every dog or monkey bite in Uttarakhand’s Nainital district is literally eating into the Government’s coffers since the State’s High Court (HC) recently made it mandatory for municipal authorities to pay Rs2 lakh as compensation to each victim.
Faced with the horrifying prospect of a slew of demands for compensation following the order, the Nainital Municipal Corporation has now knocked on the door of the Supreme Court (SC) against the HC’s order. The matter is expected to come up for hearing on Tuesday.
The State Government is in a tizzy because during the last two days alone, the Nagar Palika Parishad of Nainital has received three complaints, with a request for compensation.
The HC asked both the Parishad and State Government to pay Rs1 lakh each as compensation. What makes matters worse is the fact that the HC’s order does not differentiate between a stray and a pet dog.
However, there is a legal question at the core of the HC order of April 9 that is bothering the Parishad. After all, which law or rule has the State agency violated, warranting it to pay compensationIJ To seek an answer, the Parishad has now approached the SC.
It’s true that monkey and stray dog menace are rampant in several parts of the State. Nainital is no exception. It was because of this that the HC entertained a PIl accusing the State of failing in its duty to protect citizens from such attacks. But the municipal body is puzzled because the laws mainly relate to prevention of cruelty to animals and not vice versa. There is no law to compensate a victim in case of simian or canine attack.
The Parishad, in its petition, drafted by advocate Manish Kumar, said that the HC’s order traversed into the lawmaking function of the legislature. The Parishad has cited two major operational difficulties in carrying out the HC’s order.
One, it will be hard for any State agency to ascertain whether the animal in question (mostly dog) is pet or stray. The State’s legal obligation seems to end with sterilising street dogs, but how does one ensure, they still won’t biteIJ
The other trouble seems to be jurisdiction. The petition adds: “It is very difficult to ascertain whether the victim, who has reported or made any such claim of dog/monkey bite, was in the area falling under the municipality at the time of the incident.”
While the municipality has resorted to sterilisation of street dogs, it is a harsh reality that the Parishad which suffers from lack of funds, infrastructure and space for constructing dog shelters, is failing in its efforts to rein in the dog menace. How it will curb the simian menace is another question altogether!