The Supreme Court of India’s 2025 orders regarding stray dogs first, to remove them to shelters and, later, to release sterilized and vaccinated dogs while confiscating those found rabid or aggressive pose profound ethical and constitutional questions about animals’ positions in urban administration. ‘Their action to catch, seize and kill the street dogs will not only affect public health of people living in that area, but also infringe upon Article 21/ Constitution…’ Despite their construction as upholding human constitutional rights under Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty), these rulings are at stark odds with India’s constitutional provision for protection of animals such as Articles 48A and established principle positing animals’ intrinsic worth. This article introduces the argument that these interventions are, contrary to their welfare-protective rhetoric, normatively incoherent and constitutionally problematic in so far as they render animals’ rights to life, to dignity and to territorial belonging secondary to a human-focused logic of risk management. With a theoretical basis in multispecies ethics, post human political theory and critical animal studies, this analysis investigates how judicial reasoning seeks to constitute animals as underlings instead of co-dwellers. The work draws on qualitative analysis of Supreme Court judgments, policy guidelines, media discourse and publicly articulated stakeholder responses to track the reframing of animal vulnerability, care and spatial belonging through thematic ethical sense making. The results indicate juridical anthropocentrism and advocate an animal-centred constitutional ethic in local governance.

Authors:
Subhashree Nayak, Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), India
Swayam Prabha Satpathy, Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), India

About the Presenter(s)
Subhashree Nayak is currently a doctoral research scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in Siksha 'O' Anusadhan(Deemed to be university),Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

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