Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday summoned Secretary Health Sindh, Municipal Commissioner Karachi and others in a petition related to stray dog biting and shortage of anti-rabies in metropolis.
A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar ordered to summon in a petition, filed by Tariq Masnoor Advocate regarding increasing dog-bites incidents and shortage of anti-rabies at government hospitals.
Additional Secretary Health was present in the hearing and submitted his reply in response to a show cause notice. He informed the court that there were approximately 17,837 vaccines of ARVs and 11,500 ASV available in Sindh hospitals up to Tuesday.
However, he clarified that Abbassi Shaheed Hospital and 14 Karachi Municipal Corporations (KMC) hospitals are not included in the list.
The court showed its annoyance over non-appearance of Secretary Local Government and ordered the issuance of show cause notice to him.
Al six DMCs and KMC were represented by their attorneys. The court asked from the KMC lawyer and DMC lawyers as why anti-stray dogs drive has not been started, who should be blamed for it.
The court ordered the Municipal Commissioner KMC; municipal commissioners of all six DMCs of Karachi as well as Secretaries of Health and Local Government to appear in the next hearing of the petition on 22nd Oct 2019.
KMC AND DMCs pleaded that they lack the resources to launch this drive to catch and kill the stray dogs.
Meanwhile, the SHC sought the reply from Sindh Government and Omni Group by October 29, 2019 over non-payment of dues to sugarcane growers. According to sugarcane growers, eight sugar mills owned by Omni Group have to pay Rs 570 million to growers against purchase of sugarcane.
Earlier, the SHC had ordered growers to approach the Supreme Court, which had directed for resolving the issue in accordance with law.
Omin Group's lawyer told the court that accounts of Omni Group have been frozen on the orders of the apex court, making it unable to pay the payment.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019