NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on July 28 took suo motu cognisance of the growing menace of stray dog attacks, resulting in fatalities and directed the matter to be placed before the CJI for appropriate directions.
It also termed it as 'alarming and disturbing'.
The top court's two-judge bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan took suo motu cognisance of the issue after going through a media report highlighting the tragic and brutal death of a six-year-old girl in Delhi due to rabies following a dog bite.
"This is a highly disturbing news report titled as: "City hounded by strays and kids pay price". It contains extremely troubling details. There are reports of hundreds of dog bite incidents from both cities and peripheral areas, many of which have led to rabies infections. Ultimately, it is infants and senior citizens who are falling prey to this deadly disease," the court noted in its order.
"The registry has been directed to treat the matter as a suo motu writ petition and place the order along with the news report before the Chief Justice of India (CJI) for necessary directions," the court said.
The case in which the top court took SMC was that of Chavi Sharma, a six-year-old from Delhi's Pooth Kalan area who was attacked on June 30 by a stray dog. After getting proper medical treatment, she succumbed to the infection on July 26.