Mouse Trap Manufacturers Challenge ‘Illegal’ Ban on Glue Boards in Bombay High Court | Mumbai News

Mumbai: Feeling stuck in the face of notifications seeking ban on sticky sheets, mouse trap manufacturers have filed a petition Bombay High Court to have them cancelled. Circulars first published in August 2011 and November 2020 Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) is “illegal and arbitrary” and violates their legal and various fundamental rights, pest control companies they claimed.
AWBI said glue traps were inhumane and contravened the provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Rodent control companies claim that the use of glue traps in India provides a non-toxic and pesticide-free solution to prevent infestation. They said the 2011 circular was advisory in nature and the state government had not issued any ban at that time. However, according to the petition filed by the pest control companies, in 2020, the AWBI secretary issued a letter to all states and the Directorate General of External Trade, Delhi, urging them to take steps to impose a ban on the production and import of glue traps.
Last September, Glue Sheet Producers Association He stated that he learned about the ban from the news, but that no official circular was published in the petition submitted in May and registered in July 2024. In addition to his complaints about the lack of clarity regarding the ban, he argued that there were no legal provisions distinguishing between humane and non-humane ways of measuring cruelty to rodents to justify the ban.
As manufacturers of mouse glue traps, which are widely used to prevent health hazards caused by millions of mice infesting the country, they claim that the circulars were issued unlawfully. The petition states that glue traps are “essential in a variety of industries”; these include the hotel and restaurant business, the Indian Air Force, the Indian Railways and the Indian Aerospace, Information Technology and Research Organisation, which regularly floats tenders for their acquisition.
Manufacturers from Goa, Mumbai and four other pest control firms, who filed petitions against AWBI, state Animal Welfare and Dairy department, chief secretary and Pest Control Association of India, said the traps set how to release the trapped mouse with vegetable oil. and General Directorate of Foreign Trade.
The petition argues that there are currently no “effective and commercially viable humane methods that can be applied other than adhesive sheets.”
The matter was listed before the division bench of the HC comprising Justices BP Colabawalla and Somasekhar Sunderesan on October 22, but due to lack of time, it will now come up on November 13.