This is a monitoring order, not a fresh policy on stray dogs. The Kerala High Court is overseeing how the State and its local bodies implement the directions the Supreme Court issued in May, and has now put a reporting mechanism in place: a High-Level Monitoring Committee must collect and file, every month, a compliance report from each panchayat and municipality, in a format the Court has prescribed, covering the Animal Birth Control machinery and any euthanasia carried out. The case will return to the Court monthly.
Kochi: The Kerala High Court has directed a State High-Level Monitoring Committee to file monthly reports on the compliance of every local body with the Supreme Court’s directions on the regulation of stray dogs, prescribing a format in which each panchayat and municipality must report its progress [In Re: Compliance with the Directions Issued by the Supreme Court in Suo Motu Writ Petition (Civil) No. 5 of 2025].
A Division Bench of Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Preeta A.K. passed the order in a writ petition it is using to monitor implementation in the State.
The background
The proceedings track the mandatory directives issued by the Supreme Court in its judgment of May 19, 2026 in the suo motu stray-dog matter. To bring the machinery of implementation before it, the High Court had impleaded a large number of local self-government institutions across Kerala, the panchayats, municipalities and corporations, as additional respondents, and had earlier directed the State to place on record the Standard Operating Procedure it had framed.
On a procedural point, the Court ratified the Registry’s step of serving notice on the numerous additional respondents by e-mail and through the standing counsel dashboard, rather than by post, to avoid the very large expense that postal service on so many bodies would have entailed, noting that the respondents were in fact now represented before it.
The State’s SOP and monitoring committee
The Government Pleader placed before the Court the documents by which the State has sought to implement the Supreme Court’s directives. By a circular of July 31, 2026, the State communicated the mandatory directives to all local self-government institutions and directed them to comply compulsorily, warning that any laxity would be viewed with extreme seriousness and that responsible officers would be held personally accountable for non-compliance brought to the State’s notice.
A Government Order of August 22, 2026 set out the Standard Operating Procedure to be followed for capturing stray dogs for the purpose of Animal Birth Control procedures, and for euthanising, as the order records, such dogs as are ferocious, afflicted by incurable illnesses, and rabid dogs that pose a danger to civil society. A further Government Order of August 31, 2026 directed the constitution of a High-Level Monitoring Committee to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court’s directions.
What the Court directed
Taking note of the monitoring committee already constituted by the State, the Court directed it to file monthly reports before the Court in a prescribed format. The format requires each local authority to report whether a Stray Dog Management Committee has been constituted within the local body, the extent of compliance with the directions in the July 31 circular, recording whether they have been complied with, partly complied with or not complied with, the extent of and reasons for any partial or total non-compliance, and the number of dogs euthanised, if any.
The details are to be collected and tabulated by the High-Level Monitoring Committee and filed before the Court by the tenth day of every month until further orders. The Court directed that the matter be listed before it on the third Thursday of every month, and posted it next for October 29, 2026.
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Why it matters
Stray-dog policy is among the more polarising subjects in public debate, pitting the concern for public safety, and particularly the fear of dog bites and rabies, against the concern for animal welfare and the statutory scheme of sterilisation and vaccination under the Animal Birth Control regime. This order does not resolve that debate or add to it; it is directed at the narrower and, in practice, decisive question of whether the directions already laid down are actually being carried out on the ground.
That focus on implementation is the significant feature. Directions of this kind, whether they favour capture and control or humane management, tend to founder not on principle but on execution across hundreds of local bodies of varying capacity. By requiring a monthly, standardised, body-by-body report, filed to a fixed template and reviewed in court every month, the High Court has built a continuous-monitoring mechanism that makes non-compliance visible and attributable rather than allowing it to disappear into the gap between a State-level order and a village panchayat. The format’s demand for reasons where compliance is partial or absent, and for the number of dogs euthanised, ensures that both limbs of the Supreme Court’s scheme, the Animal Birth Control machinery and the narrow, defined category of euthanasia it permits, are tracked.
It is worth being precise about the scope of the euthanasia the SOP records, because it is easily overstated. As set out in the Government Order, it is confined to dogs that are ferocious, incurably ill, or rabid and dangerous, which reflects the limited category the Supreme Court has permitted, rather than any general power to cull. The High Court is here supervising the implementation of that calibrated scheme, not expanding it, and the animal-welfare and public-safety concerns that the Supreme Court sought to balance both remain within the framework the reporting is designed to police.
For residents and local bodies in Kerala, the practical effect is that compliance is now on a monthly clock, with named accountability, and the High Court will see, month by month, which authorities have set up their committees and acted and which have not.
Case Title: In Re: Compliance with the Directions Issued by the Supreme Court in Suo Motu Writ Petition (Civil) No. 5 of 2025 [W.P.(C) No. 23376 of 2026]
Bench: Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Preeta A.K., High Court of Kerala at Ernakulam
Date of Order: September 16, 2026 | Next Listed: October 29, 2026
Status: Monitoring order. High-Level Monitoring Committee directed to file monthly compliance reports from all local bodies in a prescribed format; matter to be listed monthly.