NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will make an important decision on Friday over the controversial ruling from August 8 that says all stray dogs in Delhi and its four neighboring districts—Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram, and Faridabad—must be captured. A three-judge bench, led by Justice Vikram Nath and made up of Justices Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria, will decide whether to completely suspend the order, change it, or let it stand as is.
The initial ruling, which came from Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, was a suo motu case that started when a six-year-old child died from a dog bite. It told local governments to catch all stray dogs within eight weeks and put them in special shelters, making it clear that they could not be let back into the streets. The decree also said that officials had to build shelters that could hold at least 5,000 animals in the same amount of time.
Animal rights groups quickly spoke out against the sweeping orders, saying they were illegal, impossible to carry out, and would lead to widespread cruelty. They said that the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules say that dogs must be sterilized and vaccinated and then returned to their original homes, not kept in one place for good.
Chief Justice of India Bhushan R Gavai made an uncommon administrative decision to send the case to a larger three-judge panel. This bench heard arguments for a long time on August 14 before making its decision.
The bigger bench slammed the Delhi government and local entities for their “inaction” for not adequately enforcing animal control regulations during that hearing. Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General for the Delhi government, argued for fast action by pointing to “shocking” cases of dog bites that caused injuries and deaths to ensure public safety. He said that dogs shouldn’t be murdered; instead, they should be segregated, sterilized, and cared for in shelters.
On the other hand, a group of top lawyers, including Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, said that the ruling from August 8 was against the law and not possible to carry out. They said that there aren’t enough places to keep the thousands of dogs safe and that a time-limited drive could lead to cruelty. They also pointed out that government data reveals that no one has died from rabies in Delhi in a long time, which calls into question the accuracy of the sweeping measures.
Animal rights groups and public safety supporters will be watching attentively what happens on Friday. The decision will affect thousands of stray dogs and set a standard for how to deal with this problem in a country with a lot of street canines.