Kolkata: At stake—after a 11 August 2025 Supreme Court order to remove community dogs from the National Capital Region—is not just the fate of about a million of the animals but the adherence to constitutional values, India’s laws, legal precedents and procedural fairness.

The judgement by Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan goes against constitutional value of compassion under Article 51A(g), the law under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960, the binding precedent is stare decisis or “to stand by things decided”, and the procedural fairness of audi alteram partem—or to “hear the other side”.

The order came as the Supreme Court in July recorded the highest rate of pending cases of the year. On 28 July, Justices Pardiwala and Mahadevan took suo moto (or of its own volition) notice of a Times of India story about dogs attacking children.

Their order requires all community dogs in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, and Ghaziabad be removed to animal shelters within eight weeks. They banned later adoption and replaced the sterilisation–vaccination–release system mandated by law with indefinite confinement.

On 13 August 2025, after an urgent request and a reminder that the order went against the Court’s own judgements and Indian law, the Chief Justice said he would “look into the matter”. A three-member bench was scheduled to hear the appeal on 14 August.

Constitutional Order & Precedents

The Animal Birth Control Rules, most recently updated in 2023, establish sterilisation, vaccination, and return to the original location—not absolute removal—as the lawful framework for managing community dogs.

In Animal Welfare Board of India vs A Nagaraja (2014), the Supreme Court interpreted Article 51A(g) of the Constitution to require “compassion for all living creatures” as a guiding principle in animal welfare law. 

By departing from this framework and prohibiting later adoption of seized dogs, the August 11 order institutes indefinite confinement, a measure previously recognised as cruelty under section 11 of the PCA Act.

Section 3 of the PCA Act places a duty on persons to ensure animal well-being, and section 11 prohibits unnecessary confinement. The PCA (Animal Birth Control) Rules or the ABC rules, 2023, issued under section 38, require sterilised and vaccinated dogs to be returned to their original locations and ban their relocation.

In AWBI vs People for Elimination of Stray Troubles (2024), the Supreme Court reaffirmed these rules. 

An Order In Direct Conflict With The Law

The 11 August departed from this statutory and judicial framework without explanation, creating a direct conflict with binding law.

Moreover, this punitive approach exists against the backdrop of documented incidents of extreme cruelty towards community dogs, often with little or no legal consequence. 

  Over the past year, reports have recorded men chasing and shooting community dogs, tying and poisoning them, sexually assaulting puppies, and inflicting severe physical harm (for some examples from the past year, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).   

Over the past decade, the Supreme Court has consistently reinforced the ABC framework and the prohibition on relocation of community dogs. In 2014, in AWBI vs A Nagaraja, the Court recognised the intrinsic worth of animals and held that unnecessary confinement constitutes cruelty. 

The next year, in AWBI vs Union of India (November 2015), the Court directed municipal authorities to implement the then-operative ABC Rules, requiring sterilised and vaccinated dogs to be returned to their original territories.

These directions were reiterated on 9 March 2016 in the same proceedings, with an added mandate for coordinated sterilisation and anti-rabies vaccination. 

Around this time, the Court endorsed advisories issued by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), which instructed Resident Welfare Associations and citizens not to harm or relocate dogs, and to ensure that sterilised and vaccinated animals were restored to their territories.

‘The Vacuum Effect’

The AWBI repeated these instructions in a 2022 advisory, warning against the “vacuum effect”—the migration of unsterilised dogs into areas from which sterilised dogs are removed—and noting the public health risks this posed. 

In 2023, the union government notified the updated ABC Rules, which again made sterilisation–vaccination–return the legal standard and expressly prohibited relocation.

In 2024, in AWBI vs People for Elimination of Stray Troubles, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the ABC Rules were mandatory, binding on all authorities, and that sterilised and vaccinated dogs must be returned to their original territories. 

This line of authority was settled and unbroken until the 11 August 2025 order, which directed the mass removal of dogs to shelters, prohibited adoption, and made no reference to the preceding decade of rulings. 

Within 24 hours, the Rajasthan High Court issued a similar removal order, citing the Supreme Court’s decision, illustrating how a single departure at the apex level can rapidly reshape practice nationwide.

Exclusion & Natural Justice

The right to be heard (audi alteram partem) is part of natural justice and, as held in Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India (1978), a constitutional requirement under Article 21. In A K Kraipak vs Union of India (1969), the Court said these principles prevent miscarriage of justice and apply even in administrative decisions.

In the 11 August proceedings, intervention applications from experienced animal welfare groups were rejected. The order stated: “We would not like to hear anyone except the Solicitor General and amicus curiae… in the larger interest of the people.” The amicus’s own suggestion to allow adoption was not taken.

The order also contains language unusual for judicial reasoning, including: “When you want to shoot, shoot don’t talk. It’s not the time to talk but act”; and “Let's look at reality, we need to pick up, round up with whatever means to ensure dog free locality and that's how children and aged (sic) will feel safe.” 

Activists who might protest were warned of action if they “come in the way.” Such language and process indicate a jurisprudence driven by strong emotion.

While courts have at times issued urgent or strongly worded orders in the face of imminent harm, the Supreme Court has also held in State of West Bengal vs Anwar Ali Sarkar (1952) and Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India (1978)that judicial action must be anchored in reason, evidence, and procedural fairness. 

The Jurisprudence Of Anger

Comparative constitutional experience shows that when anger becomes a guiding principle in adjudication, it can lead to far-reaching consequences, as in the United States, for instance, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022).

If anger rather than legal reasoning becomes an organising principle of decision-making, it risks replacing evidentiary and statutory analysis with rhetoric and impulse, thereby undermining both institutional legitimacy and moral authority.

The amicus’s own suggestion to allow adoption was not taken. This exclusion contrasts with the Court’s own insistence in past cases that all directly affected parties be heard.

In A Nagaraja (2014), the Court recognised that Article 21’s protection of life extends to animals in a limited sense, including the right to live without unnecessary pain. Indefinite shelter confinement without release or adoption raises questions under this established principle.

The Court has relied on expert evidence in technical matters (State of Tamil Nadu vs K Balu, 2017), yet here, no input from veterinarians, conservationists, ecologists, or ethologists was taken before issuing an order with ecological and public health consequences. 

Issuing urgent directives without detailed reasoning or consultation weakens the legal and ethical foundations of judicial decision-making and risks framing vulnerable human communities as being in conflict with other vulnerable life forms, instead of seeking solutions that serve both.

‘For The Public Interest’

"We are not doing this for us, it is for the public interest,” said Justices Pardiwala and Mahadevan on 11 August.

Their order cites public safety, focusing on dog bites involving children and the elderly. While safety is a valid concern, such measures must align with the ABC Rules, designed to address such risks lawfully. The AWBI has also warned that removing sterilised dogs leads to migration of unsterilised ones, undermining rabies control.

The rules distinguish between sterilised/vaccinated dogs and unsterilised ones; this order does not. 

Ordering the removal of dogs from a city assumes the urban environment belongs solely to humans—undermining constitutional provisions that promote compassion, laws that encourage coexistence, and the state’s responsibility to care for animals.

(Shardha Rajam is a lawyer who leads the Courts of the Living podcast, where she explores our entanglements with more-than-human lives. Atreyo Banerjee co-leads Environmental Justice Innovation at Agami, an NGO. )

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