To handle the rising dog menace,the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday directed Punjab,Haryana and Chandigarh to frame a comprehensive scheme. A division bench comprising of Chief Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri and Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain ordered that the scheme should be in the form of rules or otherwise,keeping in view a judgment and decree of a Delhi Court,and comprehensive guidelines for dog control and management framed by the High Court of Bombay in a case decided in 1998. The Bench held,On the lines of the rules,judgments/guidelines,comprehensive scheme (s) shall be formulated by the authorities within a period of two months from today and those would be effectively enforced/executed thereafter. The directions were passed on a public interest litigation filed by Mohalis former municipal councilor Kuljit Singh Bedi. The respondents after formulating the scheme (s) within two months shall place the same before the court to signify that action as directed has been taken, reads the order. In his petition,Mohalis former municipal councilor Kuljit Singh Bedi had claimed the stray dogs in the recent past have created terror in Punjab,Haryana and Chandigarh and were endangering the human lives of all age groups. The petitioner had submitted that in case the stray dog menace is not possible to be controlled by the way of sterilization,they can either be put in four walls of the cattle/dog pounds or even be destroyed in the legal chambers.
