'Keep Stray Dogs In Colleges If You Accept Liability': Supreme Court To Students' Bodies

The Supreme Court has held that animal welfare groups and student-led bodies can maintain or feed stray dogs within educational institution campuses only if they formally undertake legal liability for any dog-bite incidents or related harm caused on the premises.

In its judgment on stray dog management, a bench of Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice NV Anjaria said the protection of stray dogs cannot be separated from the responsibility to ensure human safety and made accountability a precondition for any campus-based animal welfare activity.

"The assertion of rights or interests in favour of such animals cannot operate in isolation, divorced from the corresponding responsibility to safeguard human life and safety. Insofar as the animal welfare groups or student-led bodies in educational institutions are concerned, it shall be mandatory for any such group or body operating within such campuses to expressly undertake such liability by filing an affidavit to this effect with the Head of the Institution concerned, failing which no such activity of maintaining or feeding stray dogs shall be permitted within the institutional premises," the court said.

The bench warned that failure to enforce this direction would invite action against the head of the institution concerned. 

The ruling came while considering submissions made on behalf of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) in Hyderabad, which sought permission to continue its campus-based stray dog welfare initiative despite the court's broader directions prioritising the removal of stray dogs from educational campuses in the interest of public safety.

NALSAR submitted that it had institutionalised humane stray dog management through its Animal Law Centre, which undertakes sterilisation, vaccination and sensitisation programmes involving students and staff. It argued that such initiatives could serve as social experiments aligned with the Animal Birth Control Rules 2023 while promoting empathy towards animals. 

Accepting the submission as a limited exception, the court permitted NALSAR's Capture-Sterilise-Vaccinate-Release (CSVR) model to continue on an experimental basis, but only after imposing strict liability conditions.

"This Court is of the considered opinion that any framework concerning the management and protection of stray dogs must necessarily be accompanied by clearly defined principles of accountability. The assertion of rights or interests in favour of such animals cannot operate in isolation, divorced from the corresponding responsibility to safeguard human life and safety," the top court observed.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed authorities to carry out euthanasia of rabid and aggressive stray dogs.

"Authorities may, in accordance with the Animal Birth Control rules and other applicable statutory protocols, take legally permissible measures, including euthanasia in cases involving incurably ill, rabid or demonstrably dangerous/aggressive dogs to effectively cure the threat posed to human life and safety," the court ordered while calling the presence of stray dogs in public places "alarming".