Amid protests, new 3-judge Bench to take up case on stray dogs today

Amid widespread protests across India over the top court’s order to relocate stray dogs in Delhi-NCR, a new three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court will hear the suo motu case on Thursday.

On August 11, a Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan had issued directions to permanently relocate all canines from the streets to shelters "at the earliest".

“We are conscious and sensitive of co-existence. The idea behind co-existence is not the existence of one’s life at the cost of the other,” it said in the order released on Wednesday.

"A virtual divide is being attempted to be created between ‘animal lovers’ and persons indifferent towards animals. But the heart of the problem remains unanswered, for all practical reasons. As a court, our heart pains equally for everyone. We condemn those who, beneath the cloak of 'love and care' for the voiceless, pursue the warmth of self-congratulation. The directions given by us, as a court which functions for the welfare of the people, are both in the interest of humans as well as dogs. This is not personal,” the order said.

An NGO — All Creatures Big & Small — has filed an application seeking recall of the top court’s August 11 order, terming it impractical.

Now, a three-judge Bench of Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice NV Anjaria will hear it on August 14.

In the morning, some petitioners in another stray dogs-related case mentioned their plea and referred to the August 11 verdict before CJI BR Gavai, who said, "I will look into it."

The lawyer referred to a May 2024 order passed by a Bench led by Justice JK Maheshwari relegating petitions relating to the stray dogs issue to respective high courts.

Petitioner Conference for Human Rights (India) claimed the Animal Birth Control (Dog) Rules, 2001, mandating regular sterilisation and immunisation programmes for stray dogs to curtail their growing population were not being complied with.

Describing the stray dog menace as "extremely grim", the top court had on Monday directed the Delhi Government, MCD, NDMC, NOIDA and Gurugram authorities to pick up strays from all localities at the earliest and put them in dog shelters.

"This is the time to act. All these animal activists and all these so-called animal lovers… will they bring back all those children who have fallen prey to rabies? Will they put life back in those children? Let's take a practical view of the matter. When the situation demands, you have to act,” it had said, refusing to entertain intervention applications of animal rights activists.