Supreme Court's War on Delhi's Stray Dogs is Misguided and Legally Problematic

On August 11, the Supreme Court issued an order that will likely be remembered as one of the most scientifically illiterate and legally problematic decisions in recent judicial history.

Responding to a news report about stray dog attacks, Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan embarked on what can only be described as a judicial crusade, ordering Delhi authorities to clear localities of stray dogs through mass capture and indefinite detention. What began as legitimate concern for public safety has morphed into a directive that violates established law, ignores decades of scientific research, and threatens to unleash ecological disasters far more severe than the problems it purports to solve.

A courtroom drama gone wrong

The proceedings that led to this order read more like a populist rally than a judicial deliberation. Justice Pardiwala's invocation of the Clint Eastwood’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, declaring, "When you want to shoot, shoot don't talk. It's not the time to talk but act" would be merely embarrassing if it was not so revealing of the bench's approach. This theatrical pronouncement signalled an abandonment of the careful, evidence-based deliberation that should characterise the nation's highest court.

More troubling was the systematic exclusion of expert voices. Several intervener applications of animal welfare organisations were summarily dismissed. The bench's characterisation of these experts as "so-called animal lovers" and the chilling rhetorical question, "Will they be able to bring back those children who have given their lives?", weaponised tragedy to silence legitimate legal and scientific counter-arguments.

This deliberate exclusion of expertise represents a fundamental failure of judicial process. Courts routinely hear from subject matter experts precisely because complex issues require informed analysis. By shutting out the very people who understand the scientific and legal frameworks governing street dog management, the bench ensured that their order would be built on emotion rather than evidence.

Trampling the rule of law

The court's directive stands in flagrant violation of India's established legal framework for street dog management. The Animal Birth Control (Dogs) – ABC – Rules, 2023, framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, provide a comprehensive statutory scheme based on scientific evidence and international best practices. These rules explicitly mandate a 'Capture, Sterilize, Vaccinate, and Return (CSVR)' methodology, placing clear responsibility on local authorities like the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to implement systematic population management.

The ABC Rules explicitly prohibit the relocation or removal of sterilised and vaccinated dogs from their territories. The court's order for mass, permanent removal does not merely depart from this framework, it obliterates it. The bench's dismissal of the sterilise-and-release principle as "absurd" disregards substantial scientific evidence demonstrating its efficacy.

An important study by Sarah C. Totten in Jodhpur showed dog population declined significantly in three of five surveyed areas, with 61.8-86.5% of free-roaming dogs surgically sterilised and vaccinated by 2007. Research by M.C. Fitzpatrick published in PNAS confirms that combined stray canine vaccination and sterilisation campaigns have proven effective in several Indian cities, while the WHO explicitly recognises that vaccinating dogs is the most cost-effective strategy for preventing rabies in people.

Perhaps most egregiously, the court has contradicted its own precedents without acknowledgment. In Animal Welfare Board of India vs. People for Elimination of Stray Troubles, the Supreme Court itself affirmed that street dogs must be managed strictly in accordance with ABC Rules. Similar affirmations appear in subsequent orders. The current bench's departure from settled law without any attempt to distinguish or formally overrule these precedents represents a troubling breakdown in judicial consistency.

Also read: What Explains India's Privileged Treatment of Street Dogs?

Rewarding administrative incompetence

The real scandal lies not in Delhi's streets but in its municipal offices. Rather than addressing the systematic failure of local authorities to implement existing regulations, the Supreme Court has chosen to sanction what amounts to an illegal workaround that rewards incompetence with brutality.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi's failures are extensively documented. They have consistently engaged ABC agencies without mandatory Project Recognition Certificates from the Animal Welfare Board of India, rendering sterilisation efforts potentially ineffective and unmonitored. They have failed to constitute required local ABC monitoring committees. Progress reports required under Rule 13 remain largely absent, and CCTV monitoring at ABC centres remains inadequate despite regulatory requirements.

These are not recent oversights but systematic defiance spanning years, including ongoing contempt proceedings in the Delhi high court. The MCD has ignored direct judicial orders mandating compliance with ABC Rules, yet instead of holding these authorities accountable for their dereliction of duty, the Supreme Court has effectively rewarded their incompetence by authorising a brutal alternative that circumvents the law entirely.

This represents a profound miscarriage of justice. The court's role should be enforcing existing laws against delinquent authorities, not sanctioning illegal shortcuts that punish innocent animals for human administrative failures.

The science the court ignored

The Supreme Court's order reveals a stunning ignorance of basic ecology and public health science. The narrow focus on dog bite statistics, which totalled 3.7 million cases with 54 human rabies deaths in 2024 according to government data, while tragic, must be understood in context. These numbers, while requiring serious attention, pale beside the potential consequences of ecological disruption the court's order threatens to unleash.

Dogs serve as crucial apex predators in urban ecosystems, controlling rodent populations that would otherwise explode without natural predation. Research confirms that rodents represent a serious threat to food security and public health, with over 400 million people in India suffering from rodent-related diseases.

The historical precedents are sobering. Rodent overpopulation serves as the primary vector for diseases including plague, leptospirosis, and hantavirus. During China's "Four Pests Campaign" in 1958, mass sparrow killing led to locust swarms and ecological disasters. Similar disruptions of predator-prey relationships have repeatedly demonstrated that removing apex predators creates cascading effects far more dangerous than the original problem.

Furthermore, studies demonstrate that sterilised dogs show significantly better health outcomes than intact animals, with research in Jodhpur revealing that sterilized dogs were more likely to have higher body condition scores when controlling for age. This contradicts assumptions about weakened animals being unable to perform their ecological roles effectively.

Additionally, Delhi's struggles with aggressive monkey populations would likely intensify without dogs serving as natural deterrents to monkeys entering human settlements. Removing this biological barrier would inevitably lead to increased monkey incursions and attacks, potentially including rabies transmission from monkey bites, a scenario far more chaotic and difficult to manage than the current situation.

The National Rabies Control Program data shows that India recorded 6,644 clinically suspected rabies cases and deaths between 2012 and 2022, with recent studies indicating annual dog-bite incidence of 5.6 per 1,000 people. However, research consistently demonstrates that systematic ABC programmes reduce both population growth and aggression levels in street dogs while providing rabies immunity through vaccination.

Most tellingly, according to MCD data, Delhi has recorded not a single rabies death in the past three years. This statistic alone demolishes the court's emergency justification for mass removal. If existing ABC programmes, however imperfectly implemented, have achieved zero rabies fatalities in the capital, what possible rationale exists for abandoning a successful approach in favour of an illegal, scientifically unsound alternative?

Manufacturing humanitarian crisis

The court's prohibition on adoption programmes for captured dogs represents perhaps the most inexplicable aspect of the entire order. When the amicus curiae sensibly suggested promoting adoption for captured animals, the bench flatly rejected the proposal.  This condemnation of tens of thousands of potentially adoptable animals to lifelong incarceration directly contradicts ABC Rules, which specifically allows for rehoming friendly dogs.

The inevitable result will be hastily constructed shelters that rapidly become overcrowded, disease-ridden facilities where animals fight, suffer, and die in conditions that violate the very Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act the court claims to serve. The court has essentially ordered the creation of concentration camps for dogs, ensuring maximum suffering while achieving minimal public benefit.

This manufactured crisis extends beyond animal welfare. The order's repeated threats of "stern action" and contempt proceedings against those who resist the roundup create a climate of fear designed to stifle lawful protest. Citizens attempting to protect animals from what they reasonably believe to be illegal actions now face criminal sanctions.

Also read: And Justice for All

The voiceless denied justice

Perhaps the most profound injustice lies in the systematic denial of representation to the subjects of this order, the animals themselves. The Constitution's Article 51A(g) imposes a fundamental duty on all citizens, including the judiciary, to show compassion for living creatures. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act recognizes animals as sentient beings capable of suffering, deserving legal protection rather than mere administrative disposal.

The bench's dismissal of animal welfare concerns as mere "sentiment" represents an abdication of constitutional responsibility.

The exclusion becomes more troubling when considering the expertise that was dismissed. Citizen interventions through previous litigation led to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Pet Shop) Rules, 2018 and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Dog Breeding and Marketing) Rules, 2017, designed to curb exploitative commercial breeding. These interventions would have highlighted how the court's order inadvertently promotes this industry, as panicked citizens seek "safe" pets, directly threatening indigenous Indian dog breeds perfectly adapted to local environments.

Economic and social consequences

The court's order will likely trigger significant unintended economic consequences that further undermine its stated objectives. It transforms a manageable public health issue into a commercial opportunity that enriches breeders while compromising animal welfare and biodiversity.

Meanwhile, the costs of maintaining vast detention facilities for captured dogs will fall on already strained municipal budgets. These expenses, along with the inevitable veterinary costs of managing overcrowded, stressed animal populations, will far exceed the costs of properly implementing existing ABC programmes. The court has chosen the most expensive possible solution while ensuring the poorest possible outcomes.

Science over spectacle

The Supreme Court's order of August 11 represents judicial policymaking at its worst; emotionally driven, scientifically unsound, and legally incoherent. Rather than the careful work of enforcing existing laws and holding civic authorities accountable, the court has chosen theatrical gestures that mistake brutality for decisiveness and administrative convenience for justice.

Effective solutions to human-animal conflict require nuanced understanding of ecology, public health, and legal frameworks. The WHO, the World Organisation for Animal Health, and virtually every major public health organisation worldwide endorse ABC programmes as the most effective, humane, and cost-efficient approach to street dog management. India's own legal framework, developed through years of litigation and expert input, embodies these international best practices.

The court must urgently reconsider this order, either through suo motu review or referral to a larger constitutional bench. The voices of experts must be heard. The statutory framework of the ABC Rules must be respected and rigorously enforced against delinquent municipal authorities. The ecological realities must be acknowledged and addressed through evidence-based policy rather than populist gestures.

Most critically, the court must recognise that protecting children, the legitimate concern that sparked this entire controversy, requires policies based on science and the law rather than sentiment.

Arya Suresh is a Supreme Court advocate.

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