Blitz Bureau
THE Supreme Court on Monday took suo motu cognisance of a media report about incidents of dog bites leading to rabies and called it “very disturbing and alarming”.
“The news item contains some alarming and disturbing figures and facts,” a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said. It said every day, hundreds of dog bites were being reported in Delhi and on its outskirts, leading to rabies and ultimately, children and the aged were “falling prey to the dreadful disease”.
“We are taking suo motu cognisance. 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 for necessary directions,” the Court said.
The Centre last week said that India reported over 37 lakh dog bite cases and 54 suspected human rabies deaths in 2024.
According to data shared by Union Minister SP Singh Baghel in the Parliament on July 22, the total number of dog bite cases stood at 37,17,336, while the total ‘suspected human rabies deaths’ were 54 last year.
