RWA Duties in the Age of the Stray Dog Judgments: What Every Resident Welfare Association Must Know

Governance, Not Just Goodwill

RWA Duties in the Age of the Stray Dog Judgments: What Every Resident Welfare Association Must Know

By Amarjeet Singh, Advocate — PRAN (Policy Research Action Network) Foundation
📧 pranfoundationindia@gmail.com

For years, most Resident Welfare Associations have treated community dog feeding as a soft, internal matter — something to be managed informally between "dog lovers" and "dog-fearing" residents, with the RWA stepping in only when tempers flared. Courts across the country are now making unmistakably clear that this is no longer just a community relations issue. It is a governance duty, with real financial and legal exposure attached to getting it wrong.

This piece sets out exactly what has changed, where an RWA's actual legal exposure lies, and what a defensible governance framework looks like in practice.

Key Authorities

Case	Rajwinder Kaur and Anr. v. State of Haryana and Ors.
Court	Punjab & Haryana High Court
Date	18 August 2023

Case	In re: City Hounded by Strays, Kids Pay Price
Court	Supreme Court of India
Citation	2026 SCC OnLine SC 894
Date	19 May 2026

1. Why This Suddenly Matters to RWAs

The shift has come from two directions at once. On one side, courts have moved from vague exhortations about "animal welfare" to specific, quantified compensation formulas and clearly assigned liability. On the other, RWAs have kept managing dog-related conflict the way they always have — informally, inconsistently, and often without any written record of who decided what. That gap between what the law now expects and how most societies actually operate is precisely where liability sits.

2. The Legal Framework Every RWA Should Know

Three pieces of the framework matter most for day-to-day governance:

Designated feeding points under the ABC Rules, 2023. Feeding is not meant to happen wherever a resident chooses. The Rules contemplate structured, designated feeding locations — chosen to keep dogs away from entry/exit points, children's play areas, and heavy foot traffic — precisely so that feeding does not create the conditions for territorial, aggressive behaviour near people.

DAYALU-II, as unified in September 2025. Haryana's compensation scheme was substantially restructured by a notification dated 5 September 2025, which now covers death, permanent disability, lesser disability, and simple injury (including dog bite) under a single scheme — with dog-bite injuries compensated at a minimum of ₹10,000 per tooth mark and ₹20,000 per 0.2 cm of torn flesh. Claims are filed within 90 days of the incident through a District Committee headed by the Deputy Commissioner.

The Rajwinder Kaur compensation formula. Independent of any state scheme, the Punjab & Haryana High Court has held that the same tooth-mark/wound formula represents a judicially prescribed minimum for dog-bite compensation more broadly, alongside a recognition of the State's strict liability for stray/community animal incidents in public places.

3. The New Line on Caregiver and Feeder Liability

The most significant recent development is not about RWAs at all — it is about the people who feed and care for community dogs. In its 19 May 2026 judgment, the Supreme Court directly addressed whether individuals who claim a caregiving role over community dogs should bear responsibility for the harm those dogs cause:

"The assertion of a right to protect or maintain stray dogs in public spaces cannot be divorced from the obligation to ensure that such actions do not result in harm to others."

The Court went further, describing a working model: institutions permitting community dog feeding on their premises should require caregivers to furnish a written undertaking accepting tortious liability for any bite that occurs — failing which, the feeding activity should not be permitted at all.

For RWAs, this is a governance tool waiting to be adopted. A caregiver accountability undertaking, taken at the point feeding is permitted (not after an incident), converts an informal, undocumented arrangement into one with a clear, written allocation of responsibility.

4. Where RWAs Themselves Get Held Liable

To be clear, no court has held that an RWA is automatically liable for every dog within its premises. Liability arises from a narrower, specific combination: actual notice of a risk, control over the relevant common areas, and a failure to act despite that notice and control. The following case shows exactly how this plays out when it goes wrong.

Case Study

Kendriya Vihar-II, Noida — District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Gautam Budh Nagar, decided July 2026.

A pack of stray dogs attacked a four-year-old girl in a park behind the society's own RWA office, causing a Category III bite. Her father told the Commission that residents had repeatedly warned management about the risk beforehand, and that the RWA had ignored these warnings. The RWA's defence was that stray animal management falls under municipal and state jurisdiction, not a residential committee's.

The Commission rejected this defence outright. It held that residents are "consumers" under the Consumer Protection Act because they pay monthly maintenance fees — and that collecting those fees creates a binding obligation on the RWA to maintain a safe living environment and address known physical hazards. The RWA was ordered to pay ₹1,00,000 in compensation plus ₹5,000 in costs.

The pattern is consistent with what courts have found elsewhere: it is not the presence of community dogs that creates liability, but the combination of documented prior warnings and a documented failure to respond to them. An RWA that can show it acted reasonably on a complaint is in a fundamentally different position from one whose own records show the complaint was simply left unanswered.

Wondering where your RWA's bye-laws and current practices actually stand against this framework? PRAN reviews RWA governance documents and feeding/complaint protocols against the current legal position and flags specific exposure points before they become claims.

WhatsApp PRAN for a Governance Review

5. A Practical Governance Checklist

• Designate and mark feeding points — away from gates, play areas, and high-traffic paths — and treat feeding outside these points as a bye-law violation, enforced consistently.
• Maintain centralised vaccination and ABC records for every community dog, accessible to the management committee, not held privately by individual caregivers.
• Adopt a written caregiver undertaking for anyone feeding or sheltering a community dog, along the lines the Supreme Court has now endorsed — accepting responsibility as a condition of being permitted to feed.
• Create a written complaint-response protocol for aggression reports — who receives it, what assessment follows, and by when — so that a warning is never simply left unanswered.
• Arrange independent aggression assessment for any dog subject to a specific complaint, through a veterinarian or agency rather than the caregiver themselves.
• Keep a written record of every complaint and the action taken — the single most consequential gap in the cases discussed above was not the absence of a policy, but the absence of a paper trail showing the policy was followed.

6. PRAN's Perspective

Rights and responsibilities are now legally inseparable. The law has moved decisively away from treating the right to feed or protect a community animal as a standalone entitlement. Every recent authority ties that right to a corresponding duty of care toward the people who share the same space.

Ambiguity is a liability, not a shield. An RWA that avoids taking a clear position — no formal feeding policy, no designated points, no documented response protocol — is not staying neutral. It is simply choosing to have no defence ready when an incident occurs.

Prevention is cheaper than litigation. A caregiver undertaking costs nothing to adopt. A designated feeding point costs a signboard. A written complaint log costs an hour a month. Weighed against a consumer complaint, a legal notice, or a civil suit, the governance investment is trivial.

Conclusion

The direction of the law is now unambiguous: community dog management is a shared responsibility between caregivers, resident welfare associations, and municipal authorities — and each is expected to discharge a specific, identifiable part of it. For RWAs, the safest path is no longer avoiding the issue, but governing it visibly, consistently, and on the record.

Is your RWA's community dog policy actually defensible?

WhatsApp PRAN — Governance Advisory →

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⚖️ Disclaimer: This blog is for awareness and public education. It is not legal advice. For personalised legal assistance, contact a qualified lawyer.

Keywords: #RWAGovernance #StrayDogManagement #ConsumerRights #LegalAwareness #PRAN #ABCRules #CommunityDogs #ResidentWelfare #TortiousLiability #RajwinderKaur

हिंदी सार

देश की अदालतें अब यह स्पष्ट कर चुकी हैं कि सामुदायिक कुत्तों का प्रबंधन केवल एक सामाजिक मामला नहीं, बल्कि एक कानूनी ज़िम्मेदारी है। पंजाब एवं हरियाणा उच्च न्यायालय के राजविंदर कौर फैसले ने कुत्ते के काटने पर मुआवज़े का फार्मूला तय किया, वहीं सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने मई 2026 के अपने आदेश में स्पष्ट किया कि जो व्यक्ति सामुदायिक कुत्तों की देखभाल का दावा करते हैं, वे उनसे होने वाली किसी भी हानि की ज़िम्मेदारी से अलग नहीं हो सकते। नोएडा के केंद्रीय विहार-II मामले में उपभोक्ता आयोग ने एक आरडब्ल्यूए को केवल इसलिए ज़िम्मेदार ठहराया क्योंकि उसने बार-बार दी गई चेतावनियों पर कोई कार्रवाई नहीं की — जबकि निवासी रखरखाव शुल्क देकर उपभोक्ता की श्रेणी में आते हैं। आरडब्ल्यूए के लिए सबसे सुरक्षित रास्ता यही है कि फीडिंग पॉइंट तय हों, टीकाकरण रिकॉर्ड केंद्रीकृत हों, देखभालकर्ताओं से लिखित वचनबद्धता ली जाए, और हर शिकायत व उस पर हुई कार्रवाई का लिखित रिकॉर्ड रखा जाए।

Nip It in the Bud: Bombay HC's Push for Aggressive Stray Dog Sterilisation and What It Means for Public Safety

 By Adv. Amarjeet Singh, Founder, PRAN – Policy Research Action Network Foundation

The Bombay High Court has directed the Maharashtra government to aggressively implement the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme, holding that sterilising adult stray dogs at scale — rather than merely managing an ever-growing population — is the only sustainable way to resolve the state's stray dog crisis. The observation came in a suo motu petition the Court initiated to monitor compliance with the Supreme Court's nationwide directive on stray dog management.

Case Details

Field	Value
Matter	Suo motu petition on stray dog management compliance
Court	Bombay High Court
Bench	Acting Chief Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge, Justice Gautam A. Ankhad
Date	Order dated 14 August 2026; adjourned to 11 September 2026
Source	Bar & Bench

The Core Issue

Following the Supreme Court's judgment of 19 May 2025 on nationwide stray dog management, High Courts across India were directed to monitor how state governments implement humane population control measures. Maharashtra's compliance roadmap, presented before the Bombay High Court, centres on the ABC programme — the legally mandated, sterilisation-based method for managing stray populations under the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023.

The bench's intervention was pointed and practical. Rather than treating the crisis as one of managing an ever-expanding population — vaccinating, feeding, and monitoring more and more dogs each year — the Court asked the state to attack the problem at its root:

• Every dog sterilised cannot procreate. Stopping births is what actually halts population growth.
• Catching adult dogs, not chasing an expanding number of strays, is administratively more achievable.
• The Court cited its own experience at the High Court's Aurangabad campus, where a veterinary sterilisation drive brought the resident stray population down to just 3–4 dogs.

Why This Matters

Stray dog management sits at an uncomfortable intersection of public safety, animal welfare, and civic capacity — and citizens often feel caught in the middle.

• For residents, unchecked population growth means more dog bites, more rabies risk, and more fear in public spaces, especially for children and the elderly.
• For animal welfare advocates, the law is unambiguous — culling or indiscriminate relocation of strays is not a lawful option; the ABC Rules mandate humane sterilisation and vaccination.
• For municipal bodies, an ever-growing population makes feeding, vaccination, and rabies control progressively harder each year, straining already limited veterinary infrastructure.

The Court's logic — sterilise first, and every downstream problem becomes easier to manage — offers a rare point of alignment between these competing concerns.

The Larger Structural Problem

This is not the first time courts have had to nudge municipal bodies toward compliance with the ABC Rules. Across Indian cities, sterilisation targets are routinely missed, veterinary capacity is inadequate, and ABC centres often operate without consistent funding or staffing. The result is a familiar cycle: population grows faster than sterilisation drives can keep pace, complaints of dog bites rise, public pressure mounts for drastic (and often unlawful) measures, and courts are compelled to step in.

But the deeper problem predates poor implementation — it lies in the design of the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023 themselves. The Rules impose a rigid catch-sterilise-release framework on municipal bodies without matching resources, timelines, or enforcement teeth, while offering local administrations little flexibility to address genuinely dangerous or repeat-biting animals. A framework that is difficult to comply with in practice invites exactly the kind of chronic non-compliance seen across Indian cities today.

Reforming or replacing the Rules is a legislative and policy question that will take time, and PRAN believes that case for reform should be pursued through the proper channels. Until that reform happens, however, the Rules as they stand remain the law, and the only responsible position for citizens, municipal bodies, and courts alike is strict compliance — vigorous, well-funded, accountable sterilisation drives — rather than selective enforcement or ad hoc departures from the framework. The Bombay High Court's suo motu monitoring is valuable precisely because it presses for that strict compliance in the interim, even as the underlying rules deserve closer scrutiny.

Your Rights / What You Can Do

• Report unsterilised stray colonies to your local municipal corporation's ABC centre or animal welfare department.
• Insist on lawful methods. Culling, poisoning, or unauthorised relocation of strays is not permitted under the ABC Rules, 2023 — residents and RWAs can push back against such measures.
• Track municipal compliance. Citizens can use RTI applications to ask municipal bodies for ABC programme data — number of dogs sterilised, vaccination coverage, and pending targets.
• Report dog bite or rabies incidents promptly to enable proper medical response and to feed accurate data into municipal planning.
• File a complaint and claim compensation. Dog-bite victims are not without remedy. The Punjab & Haryana High Court has directed a minimum compensation of ₹10,000 per tooth mark, payable by the concerned municipal body through district-level committees headed by the Deputy Commissioner. Several municipal corporations, including Chandigarh, have set aside dedicated funds for such payouts. Separately, the Supreme Court, in its ongoing suo motu proceedings on stray dog management, has warned States that heavy compensation may be ordered for every dog-bite and dog-bite-related death where municipal negligence in implementing the ABC Rules is established. Victims should preserve medical records, photographs of injuries, and treatment bills, and approach the municipal corporation, the district committee (where constituted), or the appropriate civil/consumer forum to pursue a claim.

PRAN's Perspective

PRAN believes this order gets the immediate priority right, even as the framework it enforces needs reform. The ruling recognises three important realities:

1. Prevention at the Source Is Good Governance

Chasing symptoms — more feeding stations, more vaccination drives for an ever-larger population — is a losing strategy. The Court's emphasis on stopping procreation first is a structurally sound approach that any resource-constrained municipal body should adopt, regardless of what the law ultimately looks like.

2. Strict Compliance Is Non-Negotiable Until the Rules Change

The ABC Rules, 2023 are, in PRAN's assessment, part of the problem — their rigid design has made consistent compliance difficult and left municipal bodies chronically short of the results the law demands. But until they are amended or replaced through proper legislative process, they remain binding law. Selective or half-hearted enforcement is not an acceptable response to a flawed rule; strict, well-resourced compliance and vigorous sterilisation drives are the only lawful path forward in the meantime. Judicial oversight, as seen here, plays a vital role in holding administrations to that standard.

3. Public Safety and Animal Welfare Are Not Opposing Interests

This order shows that humane, lawful methods and genuine public safety outcomes can move in the same direction. Citizens do not have to choose between compassion for animals and safety for their families — a properly and strictly implemented ABC programme, even an imperfect one, delivers both while reform is pursued.

Conclusion

The Bombay High Court's direction is a practical reminder that the toughest civic problems often have the simplest structural fixes — if implemented with discipline. The ABC Rules, 2023 themselves may well need reform, and that debate deserves serious policy attention. But until that reform arrives, strict compliance and aggressive sterilisation are not optional extras — they are the law, and the only responsible course. As Maharashtra's compliance roadmap unfolds and the matter returns before the Court on 11 September 2026, the real measure of success will not be in submissions made in court, but in sterilisation numbers on the ground. PRAN will continue to track how this compliance process develops.

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Disclaimer: This article is intended for legal awareness and public policy discussion purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice.

For more legal-policy analysis and consumer rights advocacy, visit: PRAN – Policy Research Action Network Foundation www.publicrightaction.org

#StrayDogs #AnimalBirthControl #BombayHighCourt #PublicSafety #PolicyAdvocacy #MunicipalGovernance #AccessToJustice #PRAN #RuleOfLaw #UrbanGovernance #DogBiteCompensation

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हिंदी सार

बॉम्बे हाई कोर्ट ने महाराष्ट्र सरकार को आवारा कुत्तों की नसबंदी (एनिमल बर्थ कंट्रोल कार्यक्रम) को सख्ती से लागू करने का निर्देश दिया है। अदालत का मानना है कि बढ़ती आबादी को संभालने के बजाय, वयस्क कुत्तों की नसबंदी पर ध्यान देने से समस्या जड़ से हल हो सकती है — न नए बच्चे पैदा होंगे, न आबादी बढ़ेगी, और टीकाकरण व देखभाल भी आसान हो जाएगी। यह मामला सुप्रीम कोर्ट के 19 मई 2025 के फैसले के अनुपालन की निगरानी हेतु शुरू की गई एक स्वतः संज्ञान याचिका से जुड़ा है। अगली सुनवाई 11 सितंबर 2026 को होगी। PRAN का मानना है कि एनिमल बर्थ कंट्रोल नियम, 2023 में स्वयं सुधार की आवश्यकता है, परंतु जब तक ऐसा सुधार नहीं होता, तब तक मौजूदा नियमों का सख्त पालन और नसबंदी अभियान ही कानूनी रूप से एकमात्र सही रास्ता है। कुत्ते के काटने से पीड़ित व्यक्ति नगर निगम से मुआवज़े का दावा भी कर सकते हैं। PRAN नागरिकों से आग्रह करता है कि वे नगर निकायों से जवाबदेही की मांग करें।

When the State Fails to Protect: The Supreme Court's Stray Dog Judgment and What It Means for Every Citizen

By Adv. Amarjeet Singh, Founder, PRAN – Policy Research Action Network Foundation

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On May 19, 2026, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India delivered a judgment that may well define the future of urban public safety governance in this country. The ruling — arising from a suo motu matter on dog-bite fatalities and injuries — firmly establishes that the Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution is not a guarantee that can be quietly eroded by administrative indifference and civic neglect.

This is not a judgment about dogs. It is a judgment about the State's non-negotiable duty to protect its citizens.

Case at a Glance

Field	Details
Case	In Re: 'City Hounded By Strays, Kids Pay Price'
Citation	SMW(C) No. 5/2025
Court	Supreme Court of India
Bench	Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sandeep Mehta, Justice N.V. Anjaria
Date of Judgment	May 19, 2026
Source	https://api.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2025/41706/41706_2025_2_1501_71480_Judgement_19-May-2026.pdf

The Core Issue: A Governance Gap That Has Cost Lives

India has one of the largest stray dog populations in the world. Every year, millions of dog-bite incidents are reported. Children walking to school, elderly citizens in parks, patients outside hospital gates — each group carries a daily, invisible risk that ought to be unacceptable in a constitutional democracy.

The existing legal framework — primarily the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 — mandates sterilisation and vaccination of stray dogs as the primary response. But implementation has been grossly inadequate:

• Most districts lack even a single functional ABC Centre.
• Post-exposure prophylaxis (anti-rabies treatment) is routinely unavailable at public health centres.
• Rule 11(19) of the ABC Rules, which requires sterilised dogs to be returned to their original locality, was being mechanically applied even in school premises and hospital campuses.
• State governments treated compliance reports as a paperwork exercise rather than a governance obligation.

The result: a governance vacuum, where citizens — especially children — paid the price for a system that had all the laws but none of the infrastructure.

Why This Judgment Matters for You

The Supreme Court has now drawn a clear constitutional line. The bench held:

"The right to live with dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution necessarily encompasses the right of every citizen to move freely and access public spaces without living under a constant apprehension of physical harm, attack, or exposure to life-threatening events such as dog bites."

This matters because:

• Constitutional protection is now explicit. The State can no longer claim this is a policy discretion issue — it is a fundamental rights obligation.
• Euthanasia is now a legally permissible last resort, but only for rabid, incurably ill, or demonstrably dangerous dogs, following a mandatory veterinary assessment and strict compliance with the PCA Act 1960.
• Schools, hospitals, airports, railway stations, metro stations, bus depots, sports complexes, and major parks are now legally protected zones. Dogs captured from these areas cannot be returned to the same premises — they must be permanently relocated to municipal shelters.
• Feeding stray dogs in public streets outside designated spots is banned in these high-footfall zones.
• Municipal officers and institutional heads acting in good faith are protected from FIRs and frivolous litigation — and High Courts are empowered to summarily quash such harassment complaints.

The Larger Structural Problem: Safety Cannot Be Aspirational

What this judgment exposes is a pattern that PRAN has documented across multiple domains of public safety — from amusement ride regulation to highway safety to consumer rights. The problem is not the absence of law. India has the laws.

The problem is the complete breakdown of the infrastructure and accountability chain that translates law into lived protection.

• ABC Centres exist on paper; they are absent on the ground.
• Vaccines and prophylaxis are mandated; they are unavailable in practice.
• Stray dogs are to be managed; the budget and logistics are nowhere.

The Court has now responded to this pattern by mandating that every district must have at least one fully functional ABC Centre with proper veterinary logistics. More significantly, it has directed High Courts across all States and Union Territories to register suo motu cases to monitor compliance at the local level — a powerful decentralisation of judicial oversight that keeps accountability alive beyond the Supreme Court's own docket.

All States and UTs must submit consolidated compliance reports before the next hearing on November 17, 2026.

Your Rights — And What You Can Do Right Now

As a citizen, this judgment gives you concrete grounds to act:

• Demand accountability from your Municipal Corporation or District Administration on the status of the local ABC Centre. File an RTI if needed.
• Document and report any dog-bite incident to both the municipal authority and the nearest public health centre. Keep records. (For a step-by-step guide on filing a compensation claim against your municipality, read our earlier post: Injured by a Stray Dog? How to Make the City Pay)
• Alert your child's school management that stray dogs on or near school premises must now be reported to municipal authorities for permanent relocation — not release.
• Approach the High Court in your State if local administration continues to be non-compliant. The Court's suo motu mandate gives you a direct legal hook.
• Demand anti-rabies vaccines at your nearest public health centre. Non-availability is now a constitutional failure, not merely an administrative gap.

PRAN's Perspective

PRAN believes this judgment is a landmark reaffirmation that public safety is a constitutional entitlement — not a favour dispensed by local governments when convenient. The ruling honestly acknowledges three realities that policymakers have long avoided:

1. Welfare Cannot Be Built on Civic Neglect

Animal welfare and public safety are not mutually exclusive — but they require real infrastructure investment, not just statutory intent. A framework that mandates Animal Birth Control without ensuring ABC Centres, vaccines, or shelters is not a welfare policy. It is a liability transfer to the most vulnerable citizens.

2. High-Footfall Spaces Carry a Higher Duty of Care

The Court's distinction between ordinary streets and institutional spaces — schools, hospitals, transit hubs — is constitutionally and ethically sound. The State's duty of care is heightened wherever it has invited or is expected to protect concentrated civilian presence. PRAN will be watching whether this principle migrates, as it should, into related domains such as amusement ride regulation and school zone safety.

3. Judicial Decentralisation Is the Right Accountability Model

By directing High Courts to register suo motu cases rather than retaining all monitoring at the apex level, the Supreme Court has created a living enforcement network. This is the kind of structural accountability that PRAN advocates across all public safety domains — proximate, continuous, and institutionally empowered.

Conclusion

The May 19, 2026 judgment is a turning point — not because it resolves India's stray dog crisis overnight, but because it converts an open-ended policy debate into a time-bound, constitutionally anchored governance mandate. The next six months, leading to the November 17 compliance deadline, will test whether this country's administrative machinery can match the ambition of its constitutional courts.

At PRAN Foundation, we will be tracking compliance, supporting citizens in filing RTIs and High Court representations, and engaging with State-level monitoring processes wherever our Legal Aid Network can contribute. The Court has shown the road. It is now for civic society, and for each of us, to ensure the State actually walks it.

📖 Related Reading from PRAN

If you or someone you know has been injured in a stray dog attack, our earlier guide explains in plain language how to hold the municipal authority legally accountable — including which forum to approach, what evidence to gather, and what compensation you may be entitled to:

👉 Injured by a Stray Dog? How to Make the City Pay PRAN Foundation | publicrightaction.org

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Disclaimer: This article is intended for legal awareness and public policy discussion purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice. For specific legal guidance, please consult a qualified advocate.

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For more legal-policy analysis, PIL updates, and consumer rights advocacy, visit: PRAN – Policy Research Action Network Foundation 🌐 www.publicrightaction.org 📧 pranfoundationindia@gmail.com 📱 WhatsApp: +91-8920798501

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#SupremeCourt #Article21 #PublicSafety #StrayDogs #AnimalBirthControl #RightToLife #PILIndia #LegalAwareness #UrbanGovernance #PRAN #PublicRightAction #ConstitutionalRights #CivicAccountability

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हिंदी सार

सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने 19 मई 2026 को एक ऐतिहासिक फैसले में स्पष्ट किया है कि संविधान के अनुच्छेद 21 के तहत हर नागरिक को सार्वजनिक स्थानों पर बिना भय के चलने-फिरने का मौलिक अधिकार है। न्यायालय ने आदेश दिया है कि स्कूल, अस्पताल, रेलवे स्टेशन और अन्य भीड़-भाड़ वाले स्थानों से पकड़े गए आवारा कुत्तों को वापस वहाँ नहीं छोड़ा जाएगा — उन्हें नगर पालिका के आश्रय में स्थायी रूप से भेजा जाएगा। हर जिले में कम से कम एक कार्यशील पशु जन्म नियंत्रण केंद्र स्थापित करना अनिवार्य होगा, और सभी सरकारी स्वास्थ्य केंद्रों पर रेबीज रोधी टीका उपलब्ध रहना चाहिए। राज्य सरकारों को 17 नवंबर 2026 तक अनुपालन रिपोर्ट प्रस्तुत करनी होगी, और उच्च न्यायालय स्थानीय स्तर पर निगरानी करेंगे। PRAN फाउंडेशन नागरिकों को इस फैसले का लाभ उठाने में सहायता करने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है।