Supreme Court raps Maneka Gandhi over stray dog remarks, flays body language
A bench comprising Justices Sandeep Mehta and Justice NV Anjaria said it was court's magnanimity that it did not take contempt action.
PTC News Desk: The Supreme Court on Tuesday came down heavily on animal activist and former Union Minister Maneka Gandhi over her 'body language' and remarks on the court's observations in the stray dogs case during a podcast.
A bench comprising Justices Sandeep Mehta and Justice NV Anjaria said it was court's magnanimity that it did not take contempt action.
The court told Gandhi's lawyer Raju Ramachandran, "A little while ago, you were telling the court we should be circumspect. Did you find out what kind of remarks your client has been making? Your client has committed contempt. We are not taking cognisance of that. That is our magnanimity. Have you heard her podcast? What is her body language? What she says and how she says."
"You made a comment that the court should be circumspect. On the other hand, your client is making all sorts of comments on anybody and anything she likes," the bench said.
The lawyer went on to speak about measures for rabies control, the availability of vaccines, and the need to build professional capacity to deal with stray dog attacks.
The court responded by asking, “Since your client is an animal rights activist and has also been a cabinet minister, what has been her contribution towards budgetary allocations for implementing these schemes?”
“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”.
Appearing for one of the petitioners, advocate Prashant Bhushan argued that sterilisation helps reduce aggression among stray dogs, but said that effective sterilisation programmes are not being implemented in most cities. He added that the court’s observations can sometimes have unintended consequences. “For instance, your lordships said feeders should be made responsible for dog bites. Perhaps it was said sarcastically,” Bhushan said.