Supreme Court reserves order on pleas challenging rounding up of Delhi NCR stray dogs, no stay for now

The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on pleas challenging its August 11 order calling for the rounding up of all stray dogs in the Delhi NCR region.

A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria did not grant a stay on the directions issued to municipal authorities.

Appearing for the Central government today, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta argued,

"In a democracy, there is one is vocal majority and one who silently suffers. We have seen videos of people eating chicken egg etc and then claiming to be animal lovers. It is an issue to be resolved. Children are dying...Sterilisation does not stop rabies...even if immunised..."

He went on to say,

"WHO data shows 305 deaths a year. Most of children are under age group of 15. Nobody is a animal hater...Dogs do not have to be killed...they have to be separated. Parents cannot send children out to play. Young girls are mutilated."

Stating that there was no solution in the existing rules, he added,

"Court has to intervene...this is vocal minority view vs silent majority suffering view."

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for an NGO called Project Kindness. Calling for a stay on the August 11 order, he argued,

"This is first time I hear SG saying that laws are in place but it need not be followed...Question is to who is to comply with it. Question is has the municipal corporation built shelter homes...have the dogs been sterilised? Money has been siphoned off. No shelters are there. Such orders are suo motu. No notice. Now dogs are picked up. You say once sterilised, do not leave them. This need to be argued in depth."

Justice Nath then said,

"Show us the part of the order which is offending to you. We cannot spend the whole day on this."

Sibal pointed out,

"Please see para 11(I) directing that all dogs be picked up, rounded up from NCR and put to dog shelters/pounds. These don't exist. It has been directed to create the same in 8 weeks...after being sterilised, where will they go? All authorities directed to pick up dogs...this direction has to be stayed. What will happen? They will be culled...dogs are kept together...food is thrown and then they attack each other...This cannot be permitted."

Appearing for another party, Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra highlighted that because of the August 11 order, other states and High Courts were following suit.

Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi added,

"With the best of intentions, all directions put the cart before the horse. All directions presuppose issues...available infrastructure is less than fractional available to accommodate all the dogs. Directions 1, 3 and 4 need to be stayed. SG Mehta did preemptive prejudice. Dog bites exist...but see the parliamentary answers. There are zero Rabies deaths in Delhi... Of course bites are bad.. but you cannot create a horror situation like this."

Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave then added,

"Nobody from NGOs etc were able to place any record. Take that material from us."

Senior Advocates Aman Lekhi and Colin Gonsalves also appeared and protested the order.

Another advocate in favour of the order argued,

"We have submitted medical reports of a person who is admitted in Breach Candy hospital...humans are suffering. For every 24 individuals, there is one stray dog. All those who are here must take culpability of attacks as and when they happen..."

Summing up the contentions, Justice Nath observed,

"Parliament frames rules and laws...but not implemented. On one hand, humans are suffering and on the other hand, the animal lovers are here. Have some responsibility...all those who have filed interventions have to file affidavits and furnish evidence. All of you."

The Bench went on to reserve its order on the interim prayers for stay.

On August 11, a Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan had ordered the municipal authorities in Delhi to begin rounding up stray dogs from all areas, prioritising vulnerable localities, and to establish shelters with an initial capacity of at least 5,000 dogs within eight weeks.

The order prohibited the re-release of dogs back to the streets, mandated sterilisation, immunisation and de-worming, and required that shelters be equipped with CCTV, adequate staff, food and medical care.

It further required the creation of a helpline within a week to report dog bites, capture of offending dogs within four hours of a complaint and publication of monthly rabies vaccination and treatment data. Any obstruction to the exercise was to be treated as contempt of court.

The Court passed the August 11 order in a suo motu case. It observed that the menace of dog bites violates the fundamental rights of citizens under Articles 19(1)(d) and 21, noting that over 25,000 such cases were reported in Delhi in 2024 and more than 3,000 in January 2025 alone.

It found that sterilisation programmes had failed to address the problem over the past two decades and said the situation demanded urgent and collective action.

The Bench also pointed out that visually impaired persons, children, elderly citizens and those sleeping on the streets were particularly vulnerable to stray dog attacks. While encouraging adoption under the Animal Welfare Board’s 2022 protocol, the Court cautioned against “virtue signalling” by animal lovers that ignored the core problem.

The order prompted widespread protests by animal rights activists.

On August 14, the matter was mentioned before Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai, with submissions that there were overlapping Supreme Court proceedings on stray dogs before different benches, raising the possibility of conflicting directions.

The Chief Justice assured that the issue would be examined, and the case was directed to be listed before a new three-judge Bench.