The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the race club here to ensure that stabled horses do not participate in any races till further orders in view of the glanders scare.
Serum samples
Justice Rajiv Shakdher asked the city government to test serum samples of equines to find out if they are suffering from the disease. However, the court allowed the Delhi Race Club and an association of owners of equines to exercise the animals in small groups. The court directed the Delhi government to test all or some of the 422 horses at the club to ascertain whether any of them suffer from the disease, which has no cure or vaccine, and to place a report of the results before it.
The order came on a plea by the Delhi Race Horses Owners’ Association challenging the Delhi government’s February 13 communication to the race club to postpone or cancel the North India Derby scheduled for February 27 as the Capital has been declared a controlled area.
The association’s counsel told the court that all 422 horses had been tested by an accredited lab and declared free of glanders, an infection by bacterium Burkholderia mallei.
Delhi government standing counsel Ramesh Singh and additional standing counsel Naushad Ahmed Khan said once the city has been declared a “controlled area” there is a bar on any activity involving grouping or herding of any species of animals under the provisions of the Prevention and Control of Infectious and Contagious Diseases in Animals Act. The counsel said 49 cases of glanders were detected since January 15.
