By IANS
New Delhi : Fed up with prevarication of local authorities, the Delhi High Court Tuesday asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to specify a date by which about 20,000 stray cattle from the streets of the Indian capital would be removed.
While hearing a public suit, a division bench of Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice S.N. Agrawal asked the MCD, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and the Animal Husbandry department of the city government to specify a date to execute the plan to remove the cattle from the streets, causing traffic havoc in the city.
"How much time would you take to catch the cattle and relocate them in cow shelters," the bench asked the MCD counsel during the hearing.
"It is a pity. The municipal authorities are to be coaxed by the court to do their job," said the judges.
Despite a direction issued in 2002 to the authorities in the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the Common Cause society in 1999, the MCD and NDMC had failed to remove the cattle from the streets.
The MCD counsel said the removal would start in full swing from July 2007, after the MCD acquires 14 modern hydraulic trucks for smooth transportation of the cattle.