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Culling: High Court notices to Centre, State

CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Thursday issued notices to the Centre and the State Government to immediately file counters with reference to a PIL filed challenging the decision of bird culling in Orissa.

A bench of Justice I M Qudussi and Justice S C Parija adjudicating over the PIL asked the Union Government and the state government to file their counters within one week and posted the case for February 14.

Questioning the justification of the proposed step to cull poultry in some areas of the State, the High Court asked counsel to take the notices to file detail records and reports to the court within the stipulated period.

The All Orissa Lawyers and Farmers Association had moved the HC seeking its intervention into the Centre’s directive and the State Government’s decision to resort to culling in all the Orissa villages within 5 km of the border with West Bengal.

The petition had urged the HC to quash the Centre’s directive and recall the State Government’s decision as the same was “uncalled” for since not a single strain of bird-flu was reported from any part of Orissa.

The association secretary R N Pradhan filed the PIL, which is being conducted by his counsel Lalith Kumar Mishra and Manoj Kumar Mishra.

Though the State Government had decided to implement the Centre’s directive since Wednesday last, the culling has not yet started due to reported differences between the Chief Minister and the Animal Husbandry Minister.

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