For keeping his cattle out in the rain during Mumbai’s monsoon, a Maharashtra resident awarded 10 days in prison, as punishment for not keeping his cattle inside a covered shed, a metropolitan court also penalised the accused with a fine of Rs 3,000.
Gopal Phulsunge, a 75-year-old resident of the Lalbaug area, allegedly kept his 28 cattle including 17 cows, eight calves, and bulls, out in the rain during the 2013 downpour. Surprisingly, a neighbour who was summoned by the prosecution to prove to the court that he saw the cattle tied by a footpath during the rain while confirming the same, added that he saw Phulsunge no caring the cattle.
The case against Phulsunge was registered under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. The case was filed on a complaint by animal rights activist Chetan Sharma. The complainant had claimed that the accused had tied his cattle near a Metro bridge on June 28, 2013, for a continuous period of five days of downpour.
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While Phulsunge was also accused of denying the cattle sufficient food and water during the days in question, such charges were not proven in court. Therefore, with no medical reports, the court said that there is ample evidence to prove that they were denied shelter but not enough to prove that they were starved.
Nearly five years later, on May 28, 2018, a Mumbai metropolitan court took cognizance of the charges and ruled that exposure to extreme weather could have been detrimental to the health of the cattle. Metropolitan magistrate AH Kashikar observed, “The accused ought to have made necessary arrangements for a proper shelter of the animals, who provide him with his daily bread and butter.”
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