NEW DELHI: As dog lovers and feeders are pressing Supreme Court to roll back its order on making public institutions free of strays, the apex court on Tuesday asked them whether they can take responsibility in case of injury or death caused by stray dog bites and indicated that it will fix heavy compensation for victims.“For every dog bite, death or injury caused to children or elderly, we are going to fix heavy compensation for the victim to be paid by the state for not doing anything. Also, liability and accountability on those who are saying we are feeding dogs. Why should dogs be loitering around, biting, scaring people?…Who should be held accountable when dogs attack a nine-year-old? The organisation that is feeding them? You want us to shut our eyes to the problem?” the court asked.Hearing the stray dogs issue for the fourth day, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria observed that people are very sympathetic towards stray dogs but not so towards homeless people and orphans as no one comes forward to take care of them. The hearing in the case has so far taken nine hours and still remains inconclusive. Around three dozen activists and lawyers have till now argued in the case.SC said those who are interested in feeding stray dogs should think of adopting them and keep them in their homes.The bench said arguments in court were going on and on, and observed that it has become a public platform for them – animal lovers – rather than for court proceedings. It said that the court wanted to take the Centre, states and municipal bodies to task for failure to implement the law to deal with the problem of strays, but it has not been able to do so because of large number of people turning up to argue the case which is repetitive in nature.“Our request to all the lawyers is to allow us to take to task the Union, state authorities and other bodies on steps taken by them. Allow us to pass an order. We need to spend half a day with the states and the Union. To see whether they have a plan of action or not. The problem has multiplied a thousand times. We just want implementation of statutory provision. Allow us to do that. Allow us to work. Allow us to proceed further. The same things are coming again and again. This has become a public platform rather than a court proceeding,” the bench said.As some of the lawyers alleged that it would cost around Rs 26,000 crore to remove all strays from institutions and keep them in shelter homes, and urged the court that the amount could be better used for homeless people, SC said that why people, who are so sympathetic to animals, do not reach out to homeless people and support them.“A young counsel just showed us statistics of orphans on the streets. Perhaps some lawyers could argue for adoption of those children. Since 2011, since I was elevated to SC, these are the longest arguments I have heard. And, till now no one has argued so long for human beings,” Justice Mehta observed.Senior advocate Arvind Datar, Vikas Singh, Pinky Anand, Menaka Guruswamy, Percival Billimoria along with others argued the case. The hearing will resume on Thursday.
