Updated · 14 November 2026.
At KR Puram railway station in Bengaluru, a brown mother dog lies on the concrete at night while her puppies feed. A traveller found the family in August. In October the traveller went back to look for them, then listed them on DWB because the local groups hadn’t answered.
The Supreme Court stray dog order covers places like that station. Dogs on the grounds of schools, hospitals, stations and similar institutions are moved to shelters and not released back. Streets still follow the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, which return a sterilised dog to its lane. Parks, markets and housing colonies aren’t named in the order.
Which places does the Supreme Court stray dog order cover?
Government and private schools and colleges, hospitals and health centres, public sports complexes and stadiums, bus stands and depots, and railway stations. The order dates from 7 November 2025. A judgment on 19 May 2026 refused to dilute it. Each institution has to name a nodal officer whose job is keeping dogs out, display that officer’s details at the entrance and secure the premises with fencing or similar measures, so if you want to know who is responsible at your child’s school or your local hospital, that officer is the person to ask.
What happens to the dogs?
Local authorities pick them up, sterilise and vaccinate them, and move them to a designated shelter. Once picked up, a dog can’t go back to the spot it came from, because the Court said releasing it there would defeat the purpose of clearing the premises. The judgment also names euthanasia as a lawful measure for dogs that are rabid, incurably ill or demonstrably dangerous, after an expert veterinary assessment and within the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and the ABC Rules. Every district needs at least one working Animal Birth Control (ABC) centre, and more where dog density calls for them.
Does the order apply to streets, parks and housing societies?
Streets follow the older rule. The ABC Rules send a sterilised, vaccinated dog back to where it was caught, and the Court held that this applies to public streets and similar open-access areas while institutional campuses fall outside it. So a street dog sterilised under an ABC programme still goes back to its lane. The order doesn’t name parks, markets or housing colonies, and it leaves local authorities to decide whether to extend the same measures to other busy public places, so what applies there depends on what your own authority has done. If you feed dogs in a society, our guide to feeding stray dogs in India covers your rights.
What happens on 17 November?
States filed compliance reports before their own High Courts by 7 August. Every High Court was told to open a suo motu case to monitor those reports, with power to start contempt proceedings against officials who ignore the order. On 17 November the High Courts’ consolidated reports go before the Supreme Court, which has said the matter stays closed except for receiving them. Expect numbers more than a new ruling. Our piece on where the sterilisation money went has what those numbers have shown so far, including how few institution dogs have reached a shelter in Maharashtra and why Kerala’s panchayats are stuck. For the laws underneath it, see our guide to animal laws in India.
What can you do where you live?
Find out whether your district has a working ABC centre, ask the school or hospital near you who its nodal officer is, and look for the rescue in your area that sterilises and vaccinates dogs. Dogs taken off institution grounds need homes too. The KR Puram family is one of the adoption listings on DWB. Here is the 60-second version we posted on Instagram:
Watch the 60-second version on Instagram
We will update this Supreme Court stray dog order explainer after 17 November.
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