The Supreme Court on Friday resumed its closely watched hearing on the management of stray dogs, firmly signalling that the case cannot be reduced to visual sparring.
Declining to compare videos of alleged animal cruelty with clips of dog attacks, the court underlined that the issue before it raises serious questions of public safety, statutory compliance, and constitutional balance.
A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N.V. Anjaria made it clear that it did not want the proceedings to degenerate into what it described as a competition between videos of dog attacks and visuals alleging mishandling of animals.
Senior advocate Raj Shekhar Rao had urged the bench to consider videos annexed by him to demonstrate alleged cruelty towards stray dogs.
The bench, however, pushed back, observing that there were “n” number of videos available online showing dogs attacking children and elderly persons as well.
It added that judicial time could not be spent weighing one set of visuals against another, particularly when the matter required principled adjudication rather than anecdotal comparisons.
The hearing saw a range of submissions from animal rights advocates, residents’ representatives and intervenors, reflecting the complexity of an issue that has sparked intense public debate across Indian cities.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for an organisation named All Creatures Big and Small (ACGS), argued that the case has moved beyond a simplistic 'dogs versus humans' framing. According to Singhvi, the dispute now squarely engages constitutional principles and the limits of judicial intervention.
He submitted that the statutory framework governing stray dogs—including the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules—forms a complete fasciculus, a comprehensive and self-contained code.
Courts, he said, are meant to operate only in the interstices of legislation where gaps exist, and not to rewrite policy choices consciously made by the legislature. Any direction that effectively displaces the existing statutory scheme, Singhvi cautioned, would amount to judicial overreach.
Citing the Aravalli case, he warned against irreversible orders with trappings of finality, stressing that courts must remain restrained, intervening only in emergencies or situations demanding immediate, temporary relief.
At the same time, concerns about the adequacy of the current framework were raised from within the animal welfare side itself.
Counsel appearing for actor Sharmila Tagore, an applicant in the case, told the Court that Indian society cannot adopt a “one size fits all” solution such as removing all dogs from the streets.
Stressing the need for scientific and psychological inputs, the counsel argued that while the ABC Rules exist, they may not be foolproof and therefore warranted a serious re-look.
The Bench also examined a series of proposals placed before it by senior advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for animal rights activists.
Farasat emphasised that the core failure lay with the State’s inability to balance public safety and animal welfare. He argued that even a single human death caused by a stray dog implicates the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, while conceding that dogs, in certain situations, have undeniably become a menace.
Among the suggestions read out in court were the zoning of public spaces, mandatory feeding protocols, and a time-bound rollout of the ABC programme. Farasat proposed that sensitive zones such as schools should be kept completely free of stray dogs, while feeding should be regulated through identified feeders, fixed timings, and designated spots away from footpaths.
Opposing the State’s suggestion to jettison the ABC Rules altogether, he maintained that doing so would be impermissible under law and that governments must instead address resource and manpower gaps.
The Court, however, subjected some of these proposals to sharp scrutiny.
When an activist’s counsel suggested the use of colour-coded collars to identify stray dogs—including those with a history of biting—citing practices in countries such as Georgia and Armenia, the bench questioned the feasibility of transplanting such models to India.
Asking about the population sizes of those countries, the judges cautioned against offering solutions divorced from ground realities.
Public health concerns also featured prominently in the day’s hearing. The bench expressed unease over the presence of stray dogs in hospital premises, drawing a distinction between aggressive and non-aggressive animals.
Referring to an example of a dog allegedly living for years on the premises of AIIMS, the Court warned that any dog residing on the streets is likely to carry ticks, posing potentially disastrous consequences in a hospital environment.
The judges remarked that parts of the “dog lovers’ side” appeared “completely removed from reality” when they sought to normalise the presence of stray dogs in such sensitive spaces.
The hearing remained inconclusive, and will continue on January 13.