Transponders in fishing vessels: TN told to coordinate with Centre

The Madras High Court ordered notice to Blue Cross, People for Animals, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS) and Department of Animal Husbandry after being impleaded in a plea pertaining to poor maintenance of the three dog pounds run by the Greater Chennai Corporation. A division bench of justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad on taking stock of the report submitted by Amicus Yogeshwaran, ordered notice returnable by two weeks earlier, when the plea moved by Almighty Animal Care Trust came up for hearing on Thursday, it was submitted that stray dogs are being sterilised in the cruelest of fashion without administering anesthesia. 

However, the Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner in its status report submitted that during 2018 as many as 9,009 dogs were sterilised and immunised under ABC (Animal Birth Control) programme in the three centres maintained by it. The report claimed that on an average 10 surgeries are performed per day in each centre and that currently both soft loop and butterfly nets are used to trap stray dogs, which is permitted under Section 7 of Animal Birth Control (dog) Rules, 2001. However, the private trust in response to the Advocate Commissioner’s report submitted that it is not known as to how they dispose the dogs that die inside the pound. The stray dog issues not only prevails in Chennai but across Tamil Nadu. Many municipalities don’t have ABC centres and resort to killing dogs. It also sought for the creation of a monitoring committee consisting of Animal Welfare Organisations and individual animal activists.

The Madras High Court has dismissed a plea seeking to restrain and regulate Centres for Legal Education and device a mechanism to have an integrated centralised police verification process for candidates who apply to enroll themselves as advocates. A division bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Parasad before whom the public interest litigation came up for hearing on Thursday dismissed it as devoid of merits. The petitioner J Deliban submitted that while a mere 10 colleges are affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, there exists many centres for legal education across the state without disclosing the status of their affiliation to any university and whether they have been approved by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. 

Further, they advertise for admission to law courses in law colleges functioning in the neighbouring States as well as at colleges functioning in North India. Moreover, the said advertisements fail to disclose as to which University these centres for legal education is affiliated to. It also added that though police verification of the candidates is done to ascertain their criminal antecedents prior to their enrolment as advocate, the mechanism of police verification is not effective as the candidate who apply for enrolment disclose only their residential address and their criminal antecedents are verified only by the jurisdictional police. Based on this, the plea sought the court to curb the growing menace of such Centres for Legal Education.