Laws such as the PCA Act, 1960, and the ABC Rules, 2023, form the cornerstone of dog protection in India. These rules ban the killing of healthy stray dogs, allowing euthanasia only in cases where a vet confirms a dog is terminally sick or mortally injured.

Street dogs are a fixture of nearly every neighbourhood in Delhi, in most cases fed and cared for by residents. So when a child’s apparent rabies death sparked a court order that all dogs must be rounded up and confined to non-existent ‘shelters’,

The Supreme Court controversy around stray dogs also highlights a broader tension in urban governance—between evidence-based policy and populist perception