Indian court rules every monkey bite victim must be paid £2,000 compensation - Telegraph
Indian court rules every monkey bite victim must be paid £2,000 compensation - Telegraph
India's so called 'monkey-menace' is set to become a public finance crisis after a high court ruled all victims of simian and canine attacks must be paid £2,000 in compensation – more than two years' wages for millions of Indians.
The order was made amid an increase in attacks by monkeys and stray dogs on pedestrians in India's towns and cities.
It highlighted a growing frustration over the failure of India's local authorities to curb the attacks and bring the rising urban monkey and dog populations under control. In 2007, Delhi's deputy mayor was killedwhen he fell from his balcony following a monkey attack.
This latest legal move to bring the marauding monkeys under control seeks to force local officials to take urgent action or face major payouts from their dwindling state funds.
Officials in Nainital, one of Uttarakhand state's celebrated Raj-era hill station towns, are now appealing to India's Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.
Manish Kumar, the state's advocate, said the scale of monkey attacks in the town and its surrounding areas will lead to surge of cases and could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds a year – they received five claims in the first four days following the ruling.
He said the ruling is illegal because Indian law does not requirelocal authorities to stop monkeys and dogs biting humans. Similar attempts to make local authorities responsible have been made in courts in Mumbai, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh in the last two years.
These cases often provoke passionate disputes between devout Hindus, who revere monkeys as symbols of the god Hanuman, and civic groups under siege.
The government's "only obligation is to pick up stray dogs, sterilise them ... they are required to have a dog shelter, but there is a scarcity of space in the hills. It's a national issue, a conflict of interest, between animal rights and human rights, which should prevail?" Mr Kumar told the Telegraph.
Indian court rules every monkey bite victim must be paid £2,000 compensation - Telegraph
India's so called 'monkey-menace' is set to become a public finance crisis after a high court ruled all victims of simian and canine attacks must be paid £2,000 in compensation – more than two years' wages for millions of Indians.
The order was made amid an increase in attacks by monkeys and stray dogs on pedestrians in India's towns and cities.
It highlighted a growing frustration over the failure of India's local authorities to curb the attacks and bring the rising urban monkey and dog populations under control. In 2007, Delhi's deputy mayor was killedwhen he fell from his balcony following a monkey attack.
This latest legal move to bring the marauding monkeys under control seeks to force local officials to take urgent action or face major payouts from their dwindling state funds.
Officials in Nainital, one of Uttarakhand state's celebrated Raj-era hill station towns, are now appealing to India's Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.
Manish Kumar, the state's advocate, said the scale of monkey attacks in the town and its surrounding areas will lead to surge of cases and could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds a year – they received five claims in the first four days following the ruling.
He said the ruling is illegal because Indian law does not requirelocal authorities to stop monkeys and dogs biting humans. Similar attempts to make local authorities responsible have been made in courts in Mumbai, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh in the last two years.
These cases often provoke passionate disputes between devout Hindus, who revere monkeys as symbols of the god Hanuman, and civic groups under siege.
The government's "only obligation is to pick up stray dogs, sterilise them ... they are required to have a dog shelter, but there is a scarcity of space in the hills. It's a national issue, a conflict of interest, between animal rights and human rights, which should prevail?" Mr Kumar told the Telegraph.
