Gujarat govt initiates action to tackle stray cattle after High Court rebuke

“We are in favour of these animals, what fault is theirs, it is the owners who are responsible. They are making financial gain at the cost of these mute animals. We want time schedules, especially for the cities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot… Former deputy CM (Nitin Patel) was injured… in Mehsana. He was attacked..when will you make the roads cattle free,” a livid CJ remarked, addressing the government counsel.

The court also directed AMC municipal commissioner to nominate two officers to ensure that the steps assured by the corporation for preventing cattle menace is being taken and to take care of the stray cattles being taken into custody.

In its order, the court also expressed hope that the Gujarat government will come out with “either a policy or guidelines to ensure this problem is tackled and thereby the lives of the cattle are also protected and so are the lives of the citizens”.

Government pleader Manisha Lavkumar Shah submitted that the cabinet deliberated on the issue of cattle menace on Wednesday morning and in a press conference 3 pm, it was announced that corporations have been directed to put up temporary cattle pounds. The corporation will bear the expense that will subsequently be reimbursed by the state government.

Spokesperson of the government and senior minister Jitu Vaghani announced that cattle owners who do not have space to keep the livestock at home, can voluntarily put their cattle at the cattle pounds run by eight municipal corporations and 156 municipalities in the state. The decisions were taken in the weekly cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

The state government also submitted that cattle pounds have been instructed to not refuse taking such cattle and the transportation cost to take these cattle will also be borne by the state government.

Calling the decision “historic”, Vaghani said that the state government was committed to ensure that neither the public nor the cattle face any difficulty. He said that now people can keep their cattle in cattle pounds of municipal corporations or municipalities, instead of leaving them on the roads.

According to the minister, the animals will be provided proper facilities by the state government and if necessary, the municipal corporations and municipalities can set up new temporary cattle pounds.

“For this, Rs 10 crore have been earmarked and more can be allocated to ensure that neither cattle nor citizens face any difficulty,” Vaghani said.

An official release also quoted Vaghani saying that a special campaign is being undertaken to catch cattle from roads in municipal corporations and municipalities. He also said that this was an experiment to address the issue and that all should welcome it.

Noting that the local bodies “have failed in their duty” with cattle attacks becoming rampant, the division bench pointed out that over the years “action has not been taken” and that “now they’re (authorities) shedding crocodile tears”.

The AMC informed the HC that the civic body has been unable to manage the cattle menace in the city owing to notifications by the state government prohibiting transportation of cattle in light of lumpy skin disease (LSD), while submitting that the city has approximately 67,000 cattle.

The court was hearing a contempt application alleging wilful disobedience of earlier orders of Gujarat HC in managing cattle menace. AMC’s counsel Satyam Chhaya admitted that over the past four weeks, the difficulty of cattle menace is at peak due to LSD outbreak.

“In Surat, one man is killed and this is very alarming… Let no one else die. We don’t want anyone else to be injured also. You’ve seen in the social media… Yesterday a senior advocate was also mentioning about the problems they’re encountering (due to cattle menace),” CJ Kumar remarked.

The AMC submitted that earlier 11 teams were working in seven zones to capture cattle and now it is planning to increase the number of teams to 16, when CJ Kumar noted that “nothing is happening on the ground”.

Chhaya further submitted that now there will be RFID tags for every cattle, which will indicate the name of the owner and where the cattle has been registered. “We are filing complaints against (the owners) of cattle captured. From April 2022 till today, 363 FIRs have been registered,” submitted Chhaya.

The bench remarked that the registration of 363 FIRs in four months “doesn’t satisfy our conscience that you’ve taken a reasonable step as expected of a prudent corporation”, especially in light of AMC’s submission that approximately 5,700 cattle remain to be RFID-tagged in the city.

The court has kept the matter for further hearing next week.

Meanwhile, the Gujarat High Court Advocates’ Association (GHAA) proposed to be added as an intervenor in the litigation “for rendering effective assistance”. The court granted GHAA the liberty to file an appropriate application and permitted GHAA president senior advocate Asim Pandya to assist the court.