Current pace of fatal dog attacks in Tamil Nadu state alone would project to more than 3,000/year for the whole of India
NEW DELHI, India––Issuing the most emphatic Supreme Court of India ruling yet against “dog menace,” a three-judge panel reviewing Indian dog law since August 2025 on May 19, 2026 held that neither dogs nor persons feeding dogs hold rights superseding the right to public safety.
Reported Aratrika Bhaumik for The Hindu, of Chennai, the same city where the Blue Cross of India introduced the prototype for the Indian national Animal Birth Control progress in 1966, and has operated it at a high volume for the past 30 years, “The judges referred to several newspaper reports highlighting the ‘alarming’ rise in stray dog incidents.
“The court noted that Udaipur,” a city in Rajasthan state of about 750,000 people, where Animal Aid operates one of the most successful Animal Birth Control programs in India, “recorded approximately 1,750 dog-bite cases in 2026, while Bhilwara,” of comparable population, also in Rajasthan, “witnessed 42 persons being bitten in a single day,” Aratrika Bhaumik wrote.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Successful ABC programs have not stopped attacks
The India Supreme Court panel “further pointed out,” Bhaumik continued, “that Tamil Nadu state,” of which Chennai is the capital city, “reported approximately 263,000 dog-bite cases and 17 related deaths in the first four months of 2026.”
This would project to more than 3,000 human deaths in 2026 for the whole of India.
While some of these deaths undoubtedly resulted from rabies infections inflicted by rabid street dogs, the Indian Central Bureau of Health Intelligence last recorded as many as 360 human rabies deaths in 2006. The average number of human deaths from rabies since then, nationwide, has run around 170 per year.
The number of human deaths in India from non-rabid dog attacks, primarily on small children and older people in slums and semi-rural districts, mostly not served by effective Animal Birth Control programs, is believed to have exceeded rabies-related deaths throughout the present century.
Pit bull proliferation contributes to rising body count
Pit bull proliferation has visibly contributed to the rising toll from non-rabid dog attacks at least since 2007, when three apparent pit bull-inflicted fatalities occurred in and around Bangalore. Two such attacks occurring in Chennai in August 2025, one of them fatal, were extensively publicized.
The Indian animal advocacy community largely denied that pit bulls were involved, that the attacks were even by dogs, despite overwhelming forensic evidence, and in particular denied that the dog feeder habit of causing packs to congregate in public places was and is contributing to dog attacks generally.
(See Nine of 13 dog attack fatalities since July 2025 rabies death were by pit bulls.)
“The Bench also observed,” summarized Bhaumik in the most thorough of dozens of media reports on the India Supreme Court panel verdict, “that the issue had spread beyond residential localities into airports and other public spaces, noting that authorities at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi had acknowledged at least 31 dog-bite incidents across airport terminals since January 1, 2026.
“The state cannot remain a passive spectator”
“This court cannot remain oblivious to the deeply disturbing ground realities emerging from various parts of the country where young children and elderly persons have been attacked, ordinary citizens have been left vulnerable in public places, and even international travelers have fallen victim to such incidents,” began the three-judge panel consisting of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N.V. Anjaria.
The Indian constitution, Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria explained, “necessarily encompasses the right of every citizen to move and access public places without living under a constant apprehension of physical attack or exposure to life-threatening events such as dog bites in public areas.
“The state cannot remain a passive spectator where preventable threats to human life continue to proliferate despite statutory mechanisms specifically designed to address them.”
“Regression toward survival of the fittest”
Emphasized Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria, “The Constitution does not envisage a society where children, elderly persons and vulnerable citizens are compelled to survive at the mercy of physical strength, chance or circumstance due to failure of the state machinery.
“If such conditions are permitted to continue unchecked,” Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria warned, “the inevitable consequence may lead to a regression towards the Darwinian theory of evolution, namely the survival of the fittest would effectively govern civic life in public spaces.
“Such a situation would be wholly incompatible with constitutional democracy governed by rule of law,” Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria held.
Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria therefore rejected multiple petitions from Indian street dog feeders and humane societies encouraging feeding street dogs in public places, seeking to overturn their previous verdict of November 7, 2025. That verdict ordered that dogs be removed and excluded from educational institutions, hospitals, sports complexes, bus stands and depots, railway stations, and other government buildings.
(See India top court: “No dogs in schools, hospitals, stadiums, & bus/train stations”)
August 2025 edict banned public dog-feeding
The November 7, 2025 ruling followed an August 22, 2025 edict that banned public dog-feeding outright, required cities to designate safe feeding zones, and extended the verdict nationwide.
Both the August and November 2025 rulings also directed cities and districts to otherwise comply with the much ignored Animal Birth Control Rules 2023, requiring that street dogs be sterilized, vaccinated against rabies, and returned to wherever they were found, if those places are not educational institutions, hospitals, sports complexes, bus stands and depots, railway stations, and other government buildings.
[See Dog-feeders kill India’s national neuter/return no-kill dog control policy.]
Two steps further
The May 19, 2026 ruling went two steps further.
“Jurisdictional courts shall be empowered to take appropriate action, including contempt proceedings, against erring officers responsible for non-compliance, inaction or willful disregard of this court’s directions,” Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria ordered, meaning compliance with the Animal Birth Control Rules 2023 as well as with the order to remove dogs from educational institutions, hospitals, sports complexes, bus stands and depots, railway stations, and other government buildings.
In addition, Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria declared, “In areas where the population of stray dogs has assumed alarming proportions and where incidents of dog bites or aggressive attacks have become frequent and pose a continuing threat to public safety, the concerned authorities may, subject to due assessment by qualified veterinary experts, take such measures as may be legally permissible, including euthanasia in cases involving rabid, incurably ill or demonstrably dangerous/aggressive dogs.”
Dogs do not possess ‘indefeasible or absolute right’ to congregate, court says
Indian animal advocates have feared ever since the August 2025 verdict from the Supreme Court of India panel that the series of rulings by the three-justice panel might be taken as a mandate for mass impoundment in canine concentration camps, where dogs might die in great numbers from fighting and neglect; or, alternatively, become a pretext for indiscriminate mass killing by poisoning or electrocution, as was historically common practice following dog attacks and rabies outbreaks, prior to the 2003 introduction of the national Animal Birth Control program,
Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria “observed that a ‘harmonious’ reading of the Animal Birth Control Rules 2023, together with their parent statute, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960, did not support the contention that stray dogs possess an ‘indefeasible or absolute right’ to occupy or remain in all categories of public spaces irrespective of their nature or use,” summarized Aratrika Bhaumik.
Local governments rapped for insufficient support of ABC
“The court noted,” Bhaumik wrote, “that despite nearly two decades having elapsed since the introduction of the ABC framework, there had been a ‘discernible absence of sustained, systematic and incremental efforts’ on the part of States and Union Territories to expand and strengthen the infrastructure required to manage the steadily increasing stray dog population.
“Accordingly,” Bhaumik continued, “the Bench directed States and Union Territories to establish at least one fully functional Animal Birth Control Centre in every district, equipped with adequate veterinary infrastructure, trained personnel and surgical facilities to facilitate large-scale sterilization and vaccination programs.”
Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria, Bhaumik added, “further said the number of [Animal Birth Control centers] should be expanded, wherever necessary, keeping in view the population density and territorial extent of each district.
“The court also directed States and Union Territories to ensure adequate availability of anti-rabies vaccines and immunoglobulin in all government medical facilities and to establish effective public health response mechanisms to address dog-bite incidents,” an order reinforcing national law in effect since 1933.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Campus ABC programs
Justices Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria recognized that many Animal Birth Control programs and adjuncts to city programs operate from college and university campuses, addressing congregations of dogs at campus locations where students feed dogs.
“Observing that animal welfare organizations ‘who claim to care’ for stray dogs must also accept tortious liability,” Bhaumik summarized of that portion of the Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria discussion, “the Bench directed that any animal welfare group or student-led body operating within educational institutions and engaging in the feeding or maintenance of stray dogs must file an affidavit before the head of the institution expressly undertaking such liability,” in other words demonstrating that the dog project is insured sufficiently to compensate any victims of attacks.
“Failing this,” Bhaumik continued, “no such activity would be permitted within the institutional premises. The court further warned that non-compliance would invite suitable action against the head of the institution concerned.”
Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria concluded by directing the “Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories to submit status reports before their respective High Courts by August 7, 2026,” detailing progress in enforcing the India Supreme Court orders.
The High Courts directed to receive these reports “were asked to place consolidated reports before the apex court every four months elucidating the ‘progress achieved,'” Bhaumik finished.
The first such consolidated reports are to be reviewed by Nath, Mehta, and Anjaria for the Supreme Court of India at a hearing set for November 17, 2026.
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Able to share! With gratitude to you.
It is a relief to learn that serious attention is being paid to the deeply troubled overpopulation of dogs ( cats?) as it is unhealthy for both canines and humans to wander the streets unfed and unhoused.
All people of conscience desire a viable and affordable access to S/N and are grateful if governmental agencies are willing to make these available. We need this here in the USA and now in L.A. Unless we mandate PREVENTION as the first choice for our sheltering practices, we fail society. This must be vigorously enforced.
We are reminded that it is more essential to SPAY the females than to NEUTER the males as one only needs one ‘intact’ male to impregnate females and if the females can’t birth, then no offspring will be born. Spayed females stem population growth.
The history of neuter/return efforts in many nations and contexts, including in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Turkey, and India, where the neuter/return method has been tested on the largest scale for the longest, clearly demonstrates that it is absolutely essential to sterilize male street dogs and feral cats at the same time as females, as rapidly as they can be caught, because males actually cause most of the problems that result in people wanting to kill dogs and cats, by fighting, making noise, roaming in packs where they are not wanted, making scent mounds, etc.
Neuter/return programs that focus on population reduction alone, without attention to reducing “dog menace” in particular, inevitably fail, especially as the packs of unneutered males following the last females in heat grow, fight ever more intensely, and begin injuring humans who try to intervene. Inevitably fed-up people turn to poisoning and otherwise killing any street dogs they encounter indiscriminately, including those who have already been sterilized, creating a population void to be filled by more puppies surviving from each litter in absence of food competition from the adult dogs who have been killed.
Addressing dog & cat overpopulation requires addressing public health and safety, and public perception, as well as just the numbers. The numbers are important, but merely preventing births does not prevent the problems posed by unowned adult animals still at large.
Thanks for the article and comments. Of value far beyond India and other places mentioned.