Contradictory judicial directions, weak implementation of ABC Rules and funding gaps expose deep fractures in India’s approach to managing street dogs and rabies
The Supreme Court’s recent suo motu intervention in the street dog issue has reignited a complex debate at the intersection of law, public health and animal welfare. While India’s policy framework aligned with global scientific standards emphasises sterilisation and vaccination, its implementation remains deeply flawed due to inadequate funding, weak monitoring, and limited institutional capacity. In an interview with Governance Now, Gauri Maulekhi, animal welfare activist and a trustee of People for Animals, critiques the court’s seemingly inconsistent orders, highlights systemic administrative failures, and warns against impractical directives that risk undermining both public safety and animal welfare.
The Supreme Court recently took suo motu cognizance of the street dog issue. How do you assess the court’s handling of the matter so far, particularly the sequence of seemingly contradictory orders?
Usually the courts in our country have, of course, always been on the line of the law. They have gone by precedent and the settled law of the land, and therefore in most contexts it can easily be predicted what the outcome of a case would be based on study of the precedence, of the statute. But, in the matter of street dogs, all the precedent has been set aside by the benches that took the matter up suo moto. First, Justice Pardiwala’s bench and Justice Vikram Nath’s bench have been very unpredictable in their approach because their decisions were not merely interpretation or adjudication of law but also riddled with biases and prejudices. That’s how it appeared in court. We are still waiting for the final hearing but even so, I would say that the order pronounced on November 7 was patently arbitrary and was not consistent with the law of the land and the precedent set by the apex court itself in the past.
The Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules have existed for over two decades, yet implementation has been described as abysmal. Where do you think the system has failed – at the level of legislation, administration, or political will?
The ABC rules have existed since 2001 but if you look at the scheme of the rules, the responsibility was given to local authorities to conduct the animal birth control programme. Two critical elements were missing. One, the budgetary provision by the central or state governments: It (budgetary provision) was never advocated for animal birth control programs in vast majority of the states.
Second problem was that while we expected organizations to conduct animals control programs, not a single government ABC training centre was ever established across the country. It is only now that Uttar Pradesh has risen to the occasion and collaborated with central government and Lucknow Nagar Nigam now boasts of an ABC training centre which opened just in January this year. Before this, there was nothing at all to train people in surgery, catching, conflict resolution, post-operative care, record keeping and basically dealing with population management as a course. It was somehow never done.
Third, no central standardization or monitoring of the program was ever done. While the 2023 ABC Rules asked for a central coordination committee to be formed, it is defunct and nobody has even asked the state governments or held them up or made them accountable for this.
Only in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and to an extent Jammu and Kashmir, the state animal monitoring committees have been active and, therefore, budgetary allocation was done. And to some extent, these states have created standardised infrastructure, equipment, vehicles and manpower. Standardisation was done through government orders and capacity was built across the state in a phase-wise manner.
Most states completely left out the local authorities – municipalities, including cantonments, rural panchayats [when it comes] to get funds and the technical know-how to even conduct the program. No assistance whatsoever was given. That should have been the courts focus rather than shoving dogs away in some mythical shelters which don't exist and which would be counterproductive to dogs population management as a scientific and legal practice.
As state governments and local authorities escape accountability for failing to implement sterilisation and vaccination programmes, who should ultimately be held responsible for the ongoing dog bite and rabies problem in India?
While everything is being done right on paper, the health ministry has come up with the national action plan on rabies eradication. And they have made a very reasonable, good plan for the human population side as in vaccinations etc to be available and on the animal component also, to conduct animal birth control programs.
The national action plan is amazing. The only one drawback is that it doesn't have a penny backing. Whenever the central government makes a national action plan it allocates some budget. But here, not a single rupee was allocated to it. So I say lip service was done by everybody. The central, state and local authority components failed at executing the program due to the sheer lack of budgetary resources and monitoring and of course capacity building .
What practical and ethical challenges could arise with the recent directives on the removal of community dogs from institutional premises?
The biggest challenge that would be faced is the dishonesty in the system that would be entrenched even more, because it is impossible logistically and financially to put all dogs in shelters. Even now, when we saw that in the compliance affidavits of states’, some have refused to do it saying it is expensive to put dogs in shelters. In fact, when we calculated we found that to feed only those dogs taken away from educational institutions, it would cost more than the annual budget of 33 ministries of the Government of India.
The judiciary must, of course, understand that they cannot give directions which propose an impossible mandate on the executive and then arm-twist the executive. Calling all state chief secretaries to be present in the Supreme Court was basically a way to bully the executive into either confronting the judiciary in saying we can't do it or lie about doing it. If one were to believe the affidavits of the states, there are in excess of 800 ABC centres across the country. In the same hearing when Animal Welfare Board of India was asked how many ABC centres have project recognition (primary requirement for an ABC centre to operate) they said only around 86. This entire gap is a lie that the Supreme Court has bullied the executive into placing on record. While cruelty to animals happens on large scale, there are also financial implications.
The bigger threat is that we are in a way forcing the executive to lie to the judiciary and are okay with it because this is a slippery slope which will lead the judicial system into a sort of a disrespectful place. The judiciary is expected to be reasonable, but that dishonesty is being perpetuated by giving unreasonable targets to the extent that there is absolutely no way even from institutional areas for dogs to be permanently removed, because many of these institutions don't even have boundary walls.
And if you go around making 8-foot high boundary walls which dogs cannot breach, why not make toilets instead? Most schools don't have toilets, classrooms, blackboards. Children don't get proper midday meal. Is the biggest threat the dog? Where is a rationale, logic, reasonability? It would have probably come if the court had heard all parties before 7/11. They did not and they passed the order without hearing anyone.
International health bodies like the WHO advocate mass vaccination and sterilisation to control rabies and street dog populations. How well does India’s current policy framework align with these scientific recommendations?
India's policy framework is totally aligned with it. For decades, animal welfare organisations have been working towards it. While on paper our policies are absolutely robust, even the Director General Health Services has now seen the gap. In 2024 he issued an order to all state governments to collect dog bite data for rabies post-exposure and vaccines to be collected in a format that has been provided now by the central government.
In practice, every post-bite rabies vaccination is counted as one dog bite regardless of the fact that it could be some other animal bite or it could be a pet dog which has nothing to do with the street animal population. But a new dog bite is registered every time a person shows up at any hospital for post bite review vaccines.
To avoid duplicity, create proper categorisation and come out with solutions to bites caused by pet dogs, street dogs or other animals on the basis of correct data. Currently, all data is faulty. To correct data, the government came out with a policy which is perfect. The National Action Plan for Dog-Mediated Rabies Elimination (NAPRE) is perfect. The annual birth control rules are completely in alignment with the OIE (world organization for animal health) and WHO recommendation.
But what do you do if the court decides to negate policy, breach the separation of power, override legislation without hearing stakeholders, move in a completely unscientific and arbitrary manner and pronounce judgments that are absolutely impossible to carry out, forcing the executive to come back and lie?
Given the gaps in data collection, monitoring and coordination between municipal bodies and health departments, what reforms are necessary to ensure both public safety and animal welfare?
Resources are required to be pumped into this sector for capacity building of organisations or special purpose vehicles or municipal corporations. (They need to) understand methodology of ABC programs – not just surgeries but also how to track rabies cases in the jurisdiction, identify gaps in the program, how to evaluate programs and course correct.
All of that has been done In UP and Uttarakhand where third-party evaluations are done of every single ABC program with midway course corrections. Puppy sightings have gone down; the pack behavior of dogs has of course all but disappeared. Lactating mother sightings have gone down. Those evaluations from time to time are important and the pulling up of officers that failed to do so is also important and that can happen if the central coordination committee works effectively on scientific principles not on arbitrariness and not without raising the capacity. Without enough budget for creating ABC centres in hospitals, how is sheer numbers of dogs expected to be sterilised, [how can there be] training of people, evaluation, conducting surgeries?
Do you think animal welfare movement is more energised now?
Culturally we have always had community animals in our midst and most people did not need to come together and protest. That kind of registering a protest, whether it is physically or on social media, has happened now because such an arbitrary direction has come.
Earlier also, from 2009 to 2023, the matter of street dogs was being heard by various benches of three high courts – of Bombay, Shimla and Karnataka and the courts said that dogs should be kept in shelters and those orders were stayed by the Hon. Supreme Court. Various benches heard the matter and finally in 2023 they upheld the rules. Several parties were guiding in assisting the bench in coming up with fair orders and fair orders were passed.
It's only now that with this order [that] people had to speak up a little more. The country is scared and confused because the law is saying something whereas the court is saying something else.
Animals don't vote, and the judiciary is always looked up to as the protector of the weakest section of society.
