Supreme Court Tightens Stray Animal Safety Compliance

The Supreme Court, in a suo motu matter concerning stray animals and public safety, dealt with a wide set of interlocutory applications arising from its earlier directions dated 7 November 2025. The Court had already supplemented and elaborated its earlier orders of 11 August 2025 and 22 August 2025 after considering compliance affidavits, the Amicus Curiae’s report, and news reports on rising dog-bite incidents and stray intrusions.

The Court recorded that unchecked stray animals on public roads, especially National Highways and National Expressways, and in institutional premises such as schools, hospitals, sports complexes, bus stands, depots, and railway stations, posed a serious and continuing risk. It held that these preventable hazards reflected systemic administrative lapses and poor coordination among authorities, and that they directly impinged upon the fundamental right to life and safety under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The judgment notes multiple causes behind the problem, including inadequate sterilisation, improper disposal of food waste around public institutions, weak perimeter management, lack of coordination between institutional and municipal authorities, and insufficient public awareness about preventive conduct and post-bite medical steps. The Court’s approach was therefore not limited to isolated directions, but aimed at a coordinated institutional response.

A substantial part of the judgment addresses applications seeking modification, clarification, vacation, recall, or stay of the directions issued on 7 November 2025. The Court also considered challenges to the Standard Operating Procedure issued by the Animal Welfare Board of India in compliance with those directions. The structure of the judgment shows that the Court examined the scope of the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, the exercise of jurisdiction under Article 142, ancillary objections, and issues of accountability in stray dog management.

The final part of the judgment records the status of compliance by States and Union Territories. To support implementation, the Court annexed a detailed compliance reporting format requiring information on ABC centres, veterinarians, trained staff, sterilisation and vaccination figures, institutional identification, removal and relocation steps, nodal officers, inspection mechanisms, SOP compliance, vaccine availability, coordination mechanisms, budget allocation, infrastructure gaps, helpline creation, feeding spaces, and adoption mechanisms.

Practical takeaway: States and Union Territories must treat stray animal control as a coordinated public safety obligation, with measurable compliance and reporting.