SC notice to Centre on compensation to dog-bite victims

NEW DELHI: Should the government pay for the treatment of those, including children, who are bitten by dogs, the Supreme Court asked the Centre while seeking its response to a petition demanding rehabilitation and free medical treatment for victims of dog bites.

“It is the duty of the government to protect its people from the menace of stray dogs,” observed a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and PC Pant, agreeing with the petitioner, Kerala-based NGO Aluva Janaseva, which looks after homeless children.

The bench told the Centre to reply within a month.

The top court is already hearing a batch of petitions wanting it to frame guidelines for culling of dogs. The Animal Welfare Board’s petition against the Kerala municipal authority’s law permitting killing of stray dogs is also pending before Justice Misra’s bench.

Senior advocate Dushyant the court in the matter. In his submissions, Dave has supported killing of dogs identified as dangerous by a civic authority.

Janaseva’s lawyer VK Biju argued for a direction to the authorities to effectively implement the programme for vaccination and sterilisation of stray dogs. According to him, the government had failed to carry out its job of providing adequate shelters for the canines. Referring to Janaseva’s experience, Biju said children were easy targets for such dogs.

Complaining that government hospitals were not well-equipped with sufficient anti-rabies vaccine, Biju added the families of the victims who die due to stray dog attacks should be rehabilitated.

“The so-called animal lovers usually do not travel in twowheelers and do not walk the streets. They travel from flats in cars and from cars back to flats and hence are not affected by street/stray dog nuisances and they are unconcerned about the common man’s plight,” read Janaseva’s PIL, contesting the dog lovers’ stand that the