Why courts need to be compassionate to strays

It is quite the irony that while Aloka— the Indian stray dog adopted by a band of Buddhists monks —is being cheered worldwide for walking thousands of miles in the US alongside the monks in their march for global peace, his counterparts in India are being subjected to cruelty by the very institutions that should protect them.

- Gauri Puri

Over the past few months, the Supreme Court has taken a keen interest towards managing the so-called menace caused by stray dogs in India. The Courthas issued a slew of directions that are not only inhumane, unscientific, and non-implementable, but also defeat existing legislation on the matter, viz. the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules framed thereunder.

Institutions constituted to protect certain rights may often fail to preserve these, but what happens when such failure spreads across all pillars of democracy —the executive, the legislature and the judiciary? What happens when judicial overreach and activism assume the role of the State without adequate data or material, and decide the fate of voiceless animals? Perhaps the doctrine of parens patriae has lost its meaning, and now lends its weight to the rights of those who can speak and fend for themselves, instead of supporting the voiceless. (Under the principle of parens patriae, a State or court has a paternal and protective role over its citizens.)