A noted SC lawyer argues that the apex court’s recent stray dog order carrying a potential Rs 50,000 crore yearly price tag is colliding headfirst with India’s economic realities — despite repeated calls from PM Modi for austerity. And Rajasthan may already be showing its brutal consequences

There are reports coming in from Rajasthan, that some civic bodies in the state are allegedly undertaking secret killings of stray dogs. This is in addition to the unfortunate tweets of Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann on 20th May, where he vowed to kill stray dogs. All this stems from the recent 19th May order of the Supreme Court where the government authorities were ordered to kill street dogs who are “demonstrably dangerous/aggressive dogs”.

If this judicial usurpation of the powers of the Parliament was not enough, the SC also threw every tenet of financial prudence out of the window by upholding the validity of its last year Nov order, which directed that municipal bodies should remove every stray dog found within “Institutional areas” such as educational institution, hospital, sports complex, bus stand (including ISBT) or railway station and to permanently shift them to a “designated shelter”. In plain words, this order is financially impossible to implement. Why is this so? Please read on.

The economic ludicrousness of the order was argued by the lawyers for animal activists by giving the following maths (quoting from the judgment itself): there are over 15,46,941 educational institutions in India, and even on a conservative estimate of approximately 10 dogs per institution, the directions would entail the relocation and permanent housing of over 1.5 crore dogs from educational institutions alone, which means 77,000 shelters, even on a conservative estimate of 200 dogs per facility and even a conservative estimate of Rs.40/- per dog per day towards food alone would result in an annual recurring expenditure exceeding Rs.22,000 crores!

And this already astronomical figure is ONLY for educational institutional land and not even the other areas as mentioned in the order like hospitals, ISBT, railway stations etc. Furthermore, this figure doesn’t include the cost of veterinary care, medicines, sterilisation, vaccination, staffing, maintenance of facilities, waste management systems, utilities etc. If we factor in the last two points and conservatively just more than double the number already arrived, then we get an annual expense of nearly Rs 50,000 crore per year! In short — such an order is financially impossible to implement. The sad part is that the counsels for the animal activists even argued that because such an order is economically unviable that the government bodies will just resort to indiscriminate killings of stray dogs, which is exactly what the Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann announced on 20th May.

Now the SC after hearing the counsels, passed the judgment on 19th May and dealt squarely with this issue of the financial impossibility and by squarely dealing I mean conveniently side-stepping the issue so that the responsibility squarely falls off their shoulders.

The SC answered all these questions regarding the Rs 50,000 crore per year costs in two paras totalling 225 words. You read it right. In 225 words, the SC discarded any and all such economic apprehensions. In the first such para the court says that such arguments are “overstated” and that no new infrastructure is required but existing infrastructure such as gaushalas, cattle pounds, animal shelters can be adapted for holding the stray dogs.

Yup, you read that right again. The answer of the SC to house crores of stray dogs per year and to feed them, provide medical treatment etc is Gaushalas! In the second para, the SC says the NGOs should come forward and help and that will boost the state capacity to house these crores of institutional dogs. This discussion on the financial costs by the SC ends with the peremptory line that these financial apprehensions “do not find favour with this Court”.

That’s it! These are the points used by the SC to counter the Rs 50,000 crore price per year price tag. Regarding the first para – can someone please inform the author as to where are these existing infrastructure or gaushalas in the country which can house crores of dogs. And furthermore if you combine the resources of all the animal welfare NGOs in the country, even then you wouldn’t be able to make a dent in the financial costs we are looking at.

What I don’t get is that if there is so much money in our government coffers then why is the PM Modi Ji talking about austerity measures and that our development will be hampered if we don’t take urgent economically sound steps.

The fact is that these shelters are only going to be a massive source of corruption where the tenders will be like juicy kababs for stealing tax rupees and that the conditions are going to be so appalling that it would be better to shoot the dog on sight than to send them to a living hell. One good investigative story will be more than enough to shine a bright light on the absurdity of this reactionary plan.

Now in fairness to the SC, they did direct to pick up these institutional dogs and then relocate them to “designated areas”. So, if the SC doesn’t want any such cruelty perpetrated, as I alluded to above then, the only way to interpret this direction can be that before such relocation there are two conditions that must be fulfilled: (1) designation and (2) that there must be some area in the first place to designate. Meaning that before any such relocation, the relocating authority must first acquire this “area”, then develop it as per the Animal Welfare Board of India Standard Operating Procedure 2025 requirements, and then after such development, they must “designate” this area by some official government order.

Because otherwise the SC order would mean to pick up any stray dogs from any such “Institutional areas” and throw them far away so that they die a painful and slow death by thirst and starvation but since that is not in front of our eyes, then screams of the voiceless would not matter. This is what the local feeders or caretakers of the stray dogs must argue before the HC or the local municipality to stop any such relocation so that there is no cruelty perpetrated.

Dear Chief Justice of India Surya Kant Sir, I invite you to consider the legacy of your court. Surely, you don’t want such blood on the hands of your court and that your court be remembered for passing absurd orders which everyone knows are pies in the sky financially impossible to implement. I must, as an officer of this court, remind you that even the Directive Principles of State Policy were not made justiciable for this reason only, because at that time we did not have the money to implement these measures. My Lord, in the words of the PM Modi, now is the time for austerity and not spending Rs. 50,000 crore on stray dogs every year. Please refer this matter to a larger bench.

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