New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to permit Chief Secretaries of States and Union Territories (UTs) to appear before it through video conferencing instead of physical appearance. The Top Court rejected the request of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to seeking exemption of physical appearance of Chief Secretaries in the stray dog menace case.
The Apex Court asked the Chief Secretaries to be present in the Court physically to explain their non-compliance with the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, and their failure to curb the stray dog menace.
The Court observe that the authorities appeared to be “sleeping over” its orders and must now “come and explain” the reasons why they had not filed compliance affidavits despite repeated directions.
Justices Vikram Nath said, “No, let them come physically. It’s very unfortunate that court is wasting time here trying to deal with the problems, which should have been addressed by the Municipal Corporation, by the state governments over the years… Parliament frames rules, no action is taken,” said Justice Nath.
“We require them to file compliance affidavit, they are sleeping over it… No respect for order of the court. Let them come, we will deal with them. They have to physically come and explain why compliance affidavits were not filed. And then they must file compliance affidavits,” Justice Nath added.
(…being updated)