The Supreme Court has declined to entertain a plea that asked the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) to step in and address cruelty to dogs at animal birth control centres and shelters across the country.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta dismissed the plea on Monday. Along with action from the AWBI, the petition had also asked the Centre, all states and Union Territories to make sure no municipal body or local authority hires an animal welfare organisation for birth control operations unless that organisation holds a valid project recognition certificate from the AWBI.
Under the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, no birth control programme for street dogs can be carried out unless the local authority or the welfare organisation running it has obtained this certificate of project recognition. The petitioner’s counsel raised this requirement before the bench and pointed to the top court’s own verdict from May 19, which had already directed states and Union Territories to take time-bound steps to strengthen the infrastructure needed to implement the animal birth control framework properly.
The bench’s response was a single word: dismissed.
Beyond the AWBI direction, the plea had asked for welfare organisations whose project recognition had lapsed after five years to apply for renewal right away, and for those without a valid renewal to stop conducting animal birth control operations altogether until they got one. It had also sought regular inspections of birth control centres and shelters, along with action against organisations and individuals found responsible for cruelty to animals.
This dismissal comes close on the heels of the Supreme Court’s significant May 19 ruling, in which it permitted the euthanasia of dogs that are rabid, incurably ill, dangerous or aggressive, to reduce the threat to human safety. The court had reasoned that the right to live with dignity includes the right to move freely without fear of harm from stray dogs. In that same ruling, the court had also dismissed petitions and applications seeking to recall or modify its November 7, 2025 order on relocating and sterilising stray dogs from institutional areas.
That November order had followed what the court called an alarming rise in dog bite incidents at places like schools, hospitals and railway stations, and it directed the immediate relocation of stray dogs to designated shelters after sterilisation and vaccination. Those directions were passed as part of a suo motu case the court had taken up on the broader stray dog issue.
(With PTI inputs)
July 16, 2026
