HC serious over failure to curb cockfights

Hyderabad: The High Court at Hyderabad made serious remarks against the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police of Andhra Pradesh for making a mockery of the orders of the court to prevent cockfighting and associated betting activities during Sankrati festival.

“We ourselves have seen on TV how elected representatives attended the cockfighting and betting activities. Our orders remained on paper,” remarked the division bench comprising of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice M Ganga Rao on Monday.

The bench directed the personal appearance of both the Chief Secretary and the DGP in the court on Januavary 29 and explain the failure to implement the court orders.

The division bench gave this direction while dealing with the Public Interest Litigation petition filed by one K Ramachandra Raju seeking a direction from the court to prevent the illegal activities of cockfighting and betting during Sankranti festival in Srirampuram village of Bhimavaram mandal in West Godavari district.

The bench during the previous hearing on January 4 had made it absolutely clear that the Chief Secretary and the DGP of Andhra Pradesh will be held personally responsible if its earlier order of 2016 December 26 preventing cockfighting and betting are not implemented during this Sankranti.

It had also directed both of them to submit affidavits detailing the steps taken to prevent these illegal activities during the hearing on January 22. The government pleaders for Revenue and Home departments sought more time to file the affidavits as they got the details from the collectors late.

The bench expressed anger at the callous manner in which its orders are being treated and pulled them up for seeking additional time across the bench instead of filing memo seeking the same. The bench ordered personal appearance of the Chief Secretary and the DGP on the next date of hearing on January 29.