NEW DELHI – On Monday, the Supreme Court of India made a big decision and told the city authorities in Delhi and the NCR to start a campaign right once to pick up all the stray dogs and put them in new shelters. A panel of judges, JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, said on their own that no stray dog, whether it has been spayed or not, should be let back on the streets.
The decree goes against the current Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, which say that sterilized dogs must be returned to their original homes. The judge didn’t like this practice and said, “We don’t understand why you bring them back.”
Important Directives and Problems with Implementation
The court’s detailed judgment gives Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, and Gurugram authorities a number of binding orders:
Mass Roundup: The police need to start picking up all the stray dogs in the area right away.
Creating shelters: Civic groups have eight weeks to build new dog shelters that can hold 5,000 canines.
No Release Policy: The court made it clear that the dogs who were caught will not be let back into public places. The shelters need somebody to clean, vaccinate, and take care of the animals.
Helpline and Response: A new helpline needs to be set up to take all dog bite complaints. The court said that a person who complains about a dog bite must pick up the dog within four hours.
Contempt Proceedings: The judges said that anyone or any group that gets in the way of the roundup drive will face contempt of court.
But putting this directive into effect will be very difficult. There are roughly a million stray dogs in Delhi, but the shelters that are already there can only hold about 4,000. Many others think that the court’s order to build new shelters for 5,000 more canines is only a small part of the problem.
Critics of the ruling include activists and experts.
Animal rights activists and academics have strongly criticized the decision. Gauri Maulekhi, an activist and trustee at People for Animals (PFA), claimed the decision was “unscientific, cruel, and dangerous,” and that it would be fought. She said that the court didn’t follow the ABC regulations or listen to the people who were involved, and that the order could lead to the killing of community dogs.
The court’s conclusion also goes against some facts about rabies deaths. The Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairy told Parliament that there were no rabies deaths in Delhi from 2022 to 2025. The National Rabies Control Programme says that roughly 20,000 people die from rabies each year in the US, however other sources say that the number is lower.
The court, on the other hand, said that its ruling was based on serious public safety concerns, especially for youngsters and older people. The bench said, “No feelings of any kind should affect this case,” and then asked, “Will animal rights activists be able to bring back the lives that were lost?” The court made this decision on its own after a six-year-old girl in Delhi died from rabies.