HC notice to TN Govt, NHAI on cattle menace on highways

The Madras High Court has issued notice to the Tamil Nadu government and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on a PIL against cattle menace on highways.

A division bench comprising justices T S Sivagnanam and Bhavani Subbaroyan issued notice on a PIL from Abinand Sreedhar.

"In our view the prayer as couched is inappropriate and cannot be granted. This is so because it is not the authorities who are permitting the cattle grazing. It is the villagers adjacent to national and state highways who bring their cattle and at times the cattle stray into the highways," the bench observed.

Therefore, petitioner cannot seek a direction to the respondents to stop cattle grazing as they have not permitted it, the bench said.

The bench observed, "We might have been well justified in rejecting the writ petition. However, taking note of the concern explained by the petitioner, refrained from doing so, and grant liberty to the petitioner to give suggestions to the authorities."