COMMON Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) NEARLY five years back, a Division Bench of this Court disposed of WP Nos. 3791/2000 and 842/1997 with directions to the GNCT of Delhi, MCD and NDMC to take effective steps for removing the menace of stray cattle from Delhi. The Court examined the genesis of the problem of the cattle straying on the roads and acted in public interest to relieve the citizens of the menace which was found to be hazardous, causing traffic snarls and spreading filth and squalor leading to outbreak of diseases. The Court observed:

(2.) THE Court held that the State and its agencies were impervious to the menace and had taken no effective steps to prevent the cattle and the bovine animals from taking to the roads thereby affecting the quality of life of the citizens. The following passage is in this regard apposite:

(3.) FIVE years down the line and dozens of interim orders of this Court later, the problem continues to persist with very little headway made in the direction of effective handling of the same. The result is that stray cattle continue to roam freely on the roads and the citizens continue to suffer official apathy towards the menace. The directions issued by this Court requiring MCD and NDMC to employ sufficient number of vehicles to ferry the impounded cattle, to cancel the licences of the dairy owners in case their cattle and other animals strayed out of the premises in which the dairy is run, to launch prosecution against the defaulting cattle owners and to disconnect electric supply to the unauthorized dairies and dairy colonies with immediate effect have been obeyed more in breach than in compliance. All that the respondents have done is to prepare a resettlement scheme for shifting the unauthorized dairies to Ghogha on the outskirts of Delhi, The Resettlement Scheme, a copy whereof has been produced before us, records: