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‘They are all building castles in the air’: SC pulls up states over inadequate measures to control stray dogs

Summarising the actions taken by various state governments to control stray dogs, Agarwal said that though the states have taken several initiatives to comply with the court's direction, there is still much left to be desired.

3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jan 29, 2026 08:36 AM IST

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Expressing displeasure over the lack of adequate steps taken by state governments to control stray dogs, the Supreme Court on Wednesday remarked, “they are all building castles in the air”. The remark came as amicus curiae Senior Advocate Gaurav Agarwal explained to a bench of Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria, the measures put in place by the various states to comply with the court’s directions in the matter. The top court was hearing a suo motu case, initiated by it last July.

Summarising the actions taken by various state governments to control stray dogs, Agarwal said that though the states have taken several initiatives to comply with the court’s direction, there is still much left to be desired.

Highlighting the measures taken by Assam, he said the number of Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres in the state is “inadequate” and that “there should be a detailed action plan to increase ABC centres”.

Referring to the affidavit filed by the state, the court asked, “As of day, they don’t have a single dog centre?” In reply, Agarwal said that only Dibrugarh in Assam has a centre. “They (Assam government) are saying they will set it up in 6 months but the details are missing from the affidavit as to how they plan to do it. There are 318 stadiums in Assam,” Agarwal said.

Further, the top court expressed shock at the scale of dog bite cases reported in Assam. “Look at the statistics of dog bites. It is astonishing. In 2024 there were 1.66 lakh bites. And in 2025 only in January, there were 20,900. This is shocking,” the apex court remarked.

Agarwal said that the affidavit submitted by the states has no mention of surveys conducted in institutional areas to see if they have been fenced to prevent the entry of stray dogs.

The bench said, “They are all building castles in the air. None of the states have given data on the number of dog bites except Assam.”

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The bench was also irked over the statistics provided by Jharkhand on sterilisation of stray dogs. “1.6 lakh dogs were sterilised in 2 months? How many dogs can a caged vehicle catch in a day? Absolutely fudged up figures,” the court said.

Explaining the measures taken by the Bihar government, Agarwal pointed out that as per the state’s affidavit, there are 34 ABC centres and 20,648 dogs have been sterilised.

He, however, added that the state had not mentioned its daily capacity of sterilisation and added that if there are more than 6 lakh dogs, sterilisation of 20,648 dogs is totally insufficient.

Meanwhile, the counsel appearing for Bihar sought to assure the court that it will ramp up initiatives to control stray dogs and that the situation will improve in another three months.

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Agarwal also remarked that releasing stray dogs caught from beaches in Kerala and Goa would adversely affect their tourism.

The hearing will continue on Thursday.