Animal Groups Accuse Civic Bodies Of Selective Supreme Court Compliance Ahead Of ‘Do Or Die’ Protest

Mumbai: In the run up to a massive nationwide ‘Do or Die’ protest, animal welfare organisations from Mumbai launched a blistering attack on municipal corporations, accusing them of “cherry-picking” Supreme Court directives. Activists allege that while civic bodies are aggressively rounding up stray dogs from public spaces, they have completely ignored mandatory requirements to provide infrastructure data and establish designated feeding spots.

The tension follows a series of orders by the apex court issued between August and November 2025, which sought to balance public safety with animal rights. While the Court sanctioned the removal of dogs from "institutional areas" like hospitals and schools, it also placed heavy obligations on local bodies to ensure the welfare of the animals – obligations that activists say are being systematically ignored.

The simmering anger has culminated in the call for a nationwide ‘Do or Die’ protest, which will be organised simultaneously by various animal welfare organisations and animal lovers across the country on Sunday. In Mumbai, Pure Animal Lovers (PAL) Welfare Foundation has taken the responsibility and will hold a protest at New MHADA Colony in Andheri (W)’s Lokhandwala at 5pm.

At a press conference organised by PAL Welfare Foundation on Friday, multiple animal rights advocates argued that municipal authorities are using the court’s safety concerns as a shield to conduct illegal mass relocations. Activists claimed that they will participate in the Sunday protest, highlighting issues like missing infrastructure data, feeding spot vacuum and violation of Animal Birth Control (ABC) rules.

Roshan Pathak, animal rights advisor at PAL Foundation, said, “Most of the civic bodies ignored Supreme Court’s earlier judgement which said that setting up feeding spots is necessary but are rushing to follow the judgement of relocating stray dogs from public areas, which came later. This entire mess is created by the government as they did not fulfill their responsibility of sterilising the strays.”

Shiraj Ahmad, director and founder of Humanity World Foundation, said, “Sterilisation and vaccination of stray animals is the government’s job but is done by feeders. It is like the NGOs and feeders are doing a favour for the government.”

Xavier Santiago from Youth Organisation in Defence of Animals (YODA), highlighted that the supreme court’s suggested directive asked the veterinary departments of all the civic bodies to submit compliance affidavits with data about the manpower of veterinarians, dog catching persons, vehicles and cages among others but over 90% of the civic bodies did not comply to it. He raised concerns over the civic bodies rushing to relocate stray dogs without following the directive of identifying the institutions, issuing notices to them and identifying aggressive dogs.

“According to our estimates based on running animal shelters, it will cost over Rs60 crore to a municipal body to set up one shelter for 1,000 dogs. The government, which does not even sanction a proper budget for sterilisation and vaccination of stray dogs, can not be expected to run a proper animal shelter,” he said, adding that sterilisation, designating feeding spots and empowering feeders is the only solution to the problem.

The PAL Welfare Foundation has filed an intervention application before the SC, which is scheduled to be heard on January 7. The NGO will urge the apex court for humane and compassionate orders in terms with the ABC rules, said Adv. Manjula Biswas of PAL Foundation.

The outcry is backed by a grim reality on the ground. In cities like Mumbai, where the stray dog population is estimated to be close to 1 lakh, there are very few functional shelters to accommodate even a fraction of them. Welfare groups have warned that relocation without infrastructure will act as a death sentence, leading to territorial fights and the spread of disease in cramped, unmonitored pounds.

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