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The Madras High Court has taken up a suo motu, a nationalist involvement litigation (PIL) petition to guarantee strict implementation successful Tamil Nadu and Puducherry the caller orders passed by the Supreme Court for protecting radical from stray dogs.
Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan volition beryllium proceeding the lawsuit connected Monday (June 22, 2026). The Chief Secretaries and secretaries to the Animal Husbandry, Health and Municipal Administration departments successful Tamil Nadu and Puducherry person been arrayed arsenic respondents to the case.
On Friday (May 19, 2026), a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that “unchecked colonisation of dogs has go progressively feral, and specified animals person nary spot successful areas densely populated by quality beings owing to the superior menace they airs to nationalist safety.”
The Bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N.V. Anjaria besides wrote: “Compassion for carnal life, howsoever important, cannot beryllium interpreted successful a mode that compels citizens to endure recurring threats to their ain lives, information and bodily integrity... When the information and lives of quality beings are weighed against the interests and payment of sentient beings, the law equilibrium indispensable needfully and unequivocally tilt successful favour of the preservation and extortion of quality life.”
The Bench further observed: “This tribunal cannot besides stay oblivious to the harsh and profoundly disturbing crushed realities emerging from assorted parts of the country, wherever young children person been mauled, aged persons person been attacked, mean citizens person been near susceptible successful nationalist spaces, and adjacent planetary travellers person fallen unfortunate to specified incidents. If specified conditions are permitted to proceed unchecked, the inevitable effect whitethorn pb to a regression towards a authorities wherever the Darwinian mentation of evolution, namely, the endurance of the fittest would efficaciously govern civic beingness and nationalist spaces.”
In their order, the judges had taken enactment of a quality study titled ‘In conscionable 4 months of 2026’, Tamil Nadu records 2.63 lakh canine bites, 17 deaths’ published successful The Hindu connected May 6, 2026 and expressed daze implicit 6.25 lakh canine wound cases and 34 deaths owed to canine bites having been reported successful the State successful 2025.
Referring to specified alarming statistic from different States too, the judges attributed the crushed for the occupation reaching specified a precocious magnitude to the nonaccomplishment of the State governments and national territories to instrumentality the Animal Birth Control (ABC) model efficaciously adjacent aft 2 decades since its formulation successful 2001.
The apical tribunal held that the stray dogs picked up from premises specified arsenic acquisition institutions, hospitals, sports complexes, autobus stands and railway stations, for sterilisation, bash not person an indefeasible oregon implicit close to beryllium re-released successful the aforesaid places from wherever they were picked up and that they should beryllium transferred lone to carnal shelters.
The tribunal besides upheld the validity of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the Animal Welfare Board of India connected November 27, 2025, expanding the explanation of the word ‘institutional premises’ to nationalist spaces, specified arsenic spiritual places, parks, tourer sites and recreational areas.
The Bench further impressed upon the request for establishing a capable fig of ABC centres successful each territory crossed the country, assignment of capable fig of veterinarians and different trained staff, behaviour of regular sterilisation and vaccination programmes, removal of stray dogs from organization premises, instauration of helpline numbers to study canine bites, a mechanics for adoption of stray dogs and truthful on.
Since it would beryllium hard for the apical tribunal to show the implementation of its orders astatine a cookware India level, it requested the High Courts to instrumentality up suo motu PIL petitions. The High Courts were fixed liberty “to grow oregon tailor the scope of specified directions, arsenic whitethorn beryllium indispensable to code section conditions and exigencies, without successful immoderate mode diluting the tenor and intent of the directions” issued by the Supreme Court.
