NHAI seeks Supreme Court relief from stray cattle shelter duty to curb highway accidents

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Monday filed a plea to the Supreme Court to remove its responsibility of building shelters for stray cattle and animals along the 72,000-km network of national highways (NHs) to counter increasing animal-related accidents, reported TOI’s Dhananjay Mahapatra.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta approached a bench led by CJI Surya Kant to list NHAI’s plea before a special bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath, which had directed the national body to coordinate with states to house stray cattle and animals in shelters along the NH network spanning the country.

"Neither does the statute cast such a responsibility on NHAI nor does it have the expertise to create shelters across the 72,000-km stretch of NHs and an additional financial burden of Rs 7,000 crore would be imposed on it in creating and managing these shelters," SG Tushar Mehta said.


(With inputs from TOI)