The web went into a frenzy over the weekend. A rumour began to circulate that the Supreme Court had taken a pass on police raids on stray dogs and let local governments get away with it
It wasn’t like that.
The Supreme Court on Monday May 25 refused to throw more light on its mammoth verdict on stray dog management. A group of animal rights activists burst into the courtroom in fear.A group of animal rights activists ran into the courtroom, scared. They believed politicians were using a court order to “sanitize” the process of mass killing. After all, the bench headed by Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta instructed them to get a hold of themselves and read the real papers
They did not give any new directions. The judges gave an emphatic ruling that their initial order of 131 pages issued on May 19 will remain unchanged. That order doesn’t give a license to indiscriminate slaughter.
The Punjab Trigger
It was an outbreak of panic in Chandigarh which actually started it all.
The Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has taken to social media last week. He publicly expressed gratitude to the Supreme Court for their decision made in the month of May in 19. Then he declared that there would be a big campaign to get rid of rogue dogs in the public areas. He used some words that really frightened people. Reports began to circulate in media that Punjab was setting up a policy to eradicate dangerous dogs entirely in accordance with new guidelines by the judiciary
That is why a group called Animals Are People Too hastened their way to the Supreme Court. They appeared before the bench on Monday morning, having their lawyers, Anil Kumar Mishra, present. He said that the assessment of the Chief Minister’s remarks was being taken out of context. He said that local government was using the ruling as an excuse to simply go out and “take dogs off the street and kill them.
But Justice Nath wasn’t about to take it. He straight faced the lawyer and asked him a rather gruesome question. He was asking the Supreme Court why it should alter its official legal orders when a politician made a public statement.
The bench told the group to take their complaints to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The judges completely dismissed the application. The fear of the politician’s tweet was an insufficient basis to alter a lengthy constitutional decision, they essentially found.
The following rules apply when anyone is euthanized:
What did that big ruling on May of 19 say, then?
Euthanasia is the central issue in the anxiety. For the first time the supreme court in the country has officially recognised the right to cull stray dogs by local authorities. They buried it under a mountain of legal protections, however
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/22/india/india-stray-dogs-supreme-court-intl-hnk-dst
The court did not say that killing a dog due to nighttime barking is justified. The judges gave three very specific, very narrow categories. Euthanasia is legally allowed if a dog is confirmed to be rabid. If animal is suffering from a terminal incurable illness and massive pain are a result thereof, it is permitted. The third category is the most controversial. The court allows dogs to be put to sleep if they are found to be “highly aggressive” and “demonstrably dangerous.”
Petitioners said the term “aggressive” is very ambiguous. They were afraid that the City would file “aggression” charges on all the dogs and clear the streets of “dangerous animals.”
But the judgment must be met with a close chain of evidence. If a municipality wishes to dispatch catchers to use poison, it must do so. The euthanasia of a dog must be decided after proper veterinary assessment. Must abide by the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. It also has to comply with the existing Animal Birth Control Rules. The only thing random citizens CAN do is take the law into their own hands. The use of ‘vigilance’ against animals is still prohibited.
The Institutional Exception
The other big shift is the location of where dogs live.
The rules were not that long before. If the city catcher had taken in a stray dog for sterilization, he/she was required to return that particular dog to the same neighborhood after the procedure. Local administrators were unhappy with that rule for years.
The Supreme Court just ripped a large hole in that rule, but only for certain locations.
The judges considered places where weak people converge. They mentioned hospitals, educational institutions, railway stations, bus depots and sports complexes in particular. The bench had said that the animal welfare was completely out of place when human safety was concerned in such high traffic institutional areas. They essentially said that a society shouldn’t require children and patients with illnesses to avoid contact with feral animals in order to enter a building.
No longer will authorities be required to return a dog to the hospital or the school. They are not allowed to do so anyway, by law. Such dogs will be immunized, spayed, and sent to an animal shelter permanently.
This exception however does not apply to normal residential streets.
If the dog is outside of your apartment building, the old rules apply. The municipality can not simply dispatch the dog to the grave without falling under one of those three narrow categories of killing for euthanasia. They still need to adhere to the typical catch, neuter, and release procedure of regular neighborhoods.
Passing the Baton
The Supreme Court can no longer bear the brunt of the burden of handling this crisis on a day to day basis. They took their hands off micro-management.
The entire burden now lay on the state-level judiciary with the May ’99 order. All individual High Courts across the nation have been directed to keep an open file to monitor. That is, those local courts are now tasked with ensuring that cities are truly constructing shelters and carrying out sterilization campaigns.
State governments are in the spotlight. The deadline for filing the heavy compliance reports with the respective High Courts by the Chief Secretaries of all States and UTs in the country has been extended until August 7. They must demonstrate that they’re constructing the facilities that the Supreme Court ordered. Local officials may be subject to contempt charges if there are not enough shelters available to accommodate the dogs removed from the hospital.
