Stray dogs, public safety, and animal welfare: the Supreme Court's 2025 orders

In July 2025, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the stray dog problem in Delhi, after reports of children and others being attacked, including a report of a young girl's death following a rabid dog attack. The case, titled In Re: City Hounded by Strays, Kids Pay Price, raised a direct conflict: the safety of people, especially children and the elderly, on the one hand, and the welfare of stray animals and the existing legal framework for their control on the other.

On 11 August 2025, a two-judge Bench of Justices J. B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan directed municipal authorities in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, and Gurugram to pick up stray dogs from all localities and relocate them to designated shelters, and not to release them back onto the streets even after sterilisation and immunisation. The order also called for shelters to be created and reported within eight weeks, and for action against those who obstructed the drive.

The order drew immediate criticism, including from animal welfare groups, on the ground that it conflicted with the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023. Rule 11(19) of those Rules requires that stray dogs, once sterilised, dewormed, and immunised, be released back into the same area from which they were picked up, with exceptions for rabid or aggressive dogs. Critics also argued that shelters on the scale required did not exist, and that mass relocation without sterilisation would not reduce the population in the long term.

The matter was then placed before a three-judge Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta, and N. V. Anjaria. On 22 August 2025, that Bench modified the earlier directions, holding that a complete prohibition on release was too harsh and potentially impossible to comply with. It directed that dogs that have been sterilised, dewormed, and vaccinated must be released back into the same area, while rabid dogs and dogs displaying aggressive behaviour must be kept in separate shelters and not released. It also expanded the scope of the case beyond Delhi and the National Capital Region to all states and union territories.

The sequence is instructive. Within eleven days, the same Court moved from removal to capture, sterilise, vaccinate, and release, with exceptions for dangerous animals. The final position therefore rests less on a single dramatic order than on the unglamorous work of municipal sterilisation, vaccination, feeding points, and record-keeping that the Animal Birth Control Rules already required.