The Delhi High Court has refused to grant an interim stay on a plea challenging the Centre’s new Rule to regulate dog breeders by bringing them under the ambit of a law to check cruelty to animals.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar issued notice to the Centre and the Animal Welfare Board of India, while refusing to stay the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Dog Breeding and Marketing) Rules, saying it would tantamount to allowing the writ petition, reported PTI.
The Centre had in May this year introduced rules to regulate dog breeders, aquarium owners and livestock markets by bringing them under the ambit of a law to check cruelty to animals, the report said.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had issued a series of notifications under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
Under the new rules, it will be mandatory for all dog breeders and their establishments to register themselves with the state Animal Welfare Boards.
“Without hearing the respondent, we won’t stay it,” the bench said and listed the matter for March 19 next year.
The petition, filed by Delhi-based NGO ‘Pet Right and Care Association’, claimed that “the Rules delve circuitously into the sphere of animal husbandry”.
“The Rules, 2017 is wholly unreasonable and has no reasonable relation to the object of the principal Act, in so much as the Rules, brings under the rubric of breeders, completely different and distinct occupations, while also regimenting a uniform set of rules for such varied breeds of dogs in a manner which is highly unreasonable and myopic,” the plea has reportedly said.