The top court reverses its August 11 ruling following widespread protests, mandating that stray dogs be released after sterilization and immunization. The new order excludes aggressive and rabid animals from the directive.
August 22, 2025: On Friday, the Supreme Court of India put a stop to its own controversial judgment from August 11 about stray dogs. This is a big win for animal rights advocates. The highest court has now ordered that any stray dogs that are picked up by the police must be returned to where they were found after they have been spayed or neutered and given vaccinations.
The new decision, which was made by a three-judge special bench, is a big change from the previous one, which said that “stray dogs picked up from the streets must not be released.” The August 11 verdict, which was based on a suo motu case started after a report on increased dog bites and rabies mortality, caused protests all throughout the country. Activists, celebrities, and regular people all said that the order was unscientific and impracticable.
The court’s current order, on the other hand, makes it plain that dogs that have rabies or are acting aggressively are not included. You can’t let these animals back into the community.
The special bench also talked about other parts of the problem and told the authorities to start building dog shelters and setting up feeding areas for strays right away. The court also made it clear that feeding stray dogs is okay, but it had to be done in certain places to avoid problems. It has also moved all similar cases from different High Courts to the Supreme Court in order to help create a final, national policy on stray dogs.
Many people condemned the prior decision since it went against the central government’s own Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules of 2023. These rules say that the “Capture-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release” technique is a humane and effective strategy to control the number of stray dogs.