The Gujarat High Court on Monday directed the state government to file a report on the “effective steps taken” in eight municipal corporations and 156 municipalities to control the stray cattle menace, within a week. The directive comes after the state government submitted before the court that it has identified 8,946 stray cattle across eight municipal corporations and under six regional municipality commissioners, in five days till August 28. The court also directed the Ahmedabad city police commissioner to file an affidavit narrating the steps taken across police stations in the city, on FIRs registered against “headstrong persons who are said to have either threatened the officials. including the policemen, for capturing cattle”. The court also noted that grass and fodder is being sold at street corners without permission and asked the AMC “to take steps to check the sale”, directing the home department to extend support to the civic body. Before August 23, when the HC instructed the state to work on “war footing” to tackle the stray cattle issue, the state had identified 43,160 animals, making the total numbers 52,062 as of August 28 evening. A total of 33,806 cattle have been impounded as of August 28 evening with 844 FIRs lodged. A division bench of the Gujarat HC led by Chief Justice Aravind Kumar is hearing a contempt petition along with PILs pertaining to cattle menace and road condition. Senior advocate Asim Pandya, representing the Gujarat High Court Advocates’ Association and is assisting the court, also informed the bench that civic officials and police personnel are being attacked during impounding of cattle and they must be labelled as “dangerous person liable to be detained preventively”. Pandya added that the cattle owners should be booked under Indian Penal Code section 304 if death takes place in cattle attack as “it’s culpable homicide not amounting to murder”. Government pleader Manisha Lavkumar Shah, however, submitted that it would be “pushing it too far”. Shah submitted that “one has to balance” and IPC section 338 is being invoked. Pandya also pointed that the Gujarat Cattle Control (Keeping and Moving) in Urban Areas Bill, 2022, has been shelved owing to “protest of these people (cattle grazers/owners) who are influential”. Shah, however, contended that though the Bill has been passed, it is “under consideration of the government, but for some time we are not implementing it”. Shah added that 25 additional cattle pounds have been set up that would take nearly a week to be operational. The bench, which instructed the Gujarat State Legal Services Authority to submit a report on the present situation of cattle menace last week, also observed that the report thus submitted is “disturbing and alarming” and “issue is serious”, endangering citizens’ lives. “Though the AMC claims to have taken steps, it cannot be said that these steps are effective. Mere shedding of the tears would not suffice,” the bench observed.
