The Chief Secretary of Bihar on Thursday (October 30, 2025) has sought exemption from personal appearance in the case of stray dogs from the Supreme Court due to the ongoing assembly elections in the state. The court did not allow him to do this. The court said that the Chief Secretary has no special role in the conduct of elections. The court has personally summoned the Chief Secretaries of all the states on November 3 in the case of stray dogs. The Chief Secretary of Bihar was seeking exemption from this.
On October 27, the Supreme Court had reprimanded all the states for not filing their reply regarding the case of stray dogs and ordered that the Chief Secretaries of all the states will appear on date three. However, Telangana and West Bengal are exempted from this because both the states have filed affidavits. In the last hearing, the court had expressed concern and said that in August it had asked the states to file affidavits. Two months have passed, but the states have not yet filed the affidavit.
The bench of Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice NV Anjaria had said in the order that the Chief Secretaries will have to explain why the reply has not been filed yet. According to the Supreme Court, only Telangana, West Bengal and MCD have filed their reply so far. The court said that if the officers do not appear on the next hearing date, they will be fined or punitive action will be taken.
On August 22, the Supreme Court, expanding the scope of the stray dog case beyond Delhi-NCR, had made all the states and union territories parties and ordered them to file their replies. Earlier, a bench of two judges of the Supreme Court had ordered to capture all the stray dogs of Delhi-NCR and keep them in shelter homes. However, after this the three-member bench of the Supreme Court changed the order.
The issue related to stray dogs came into limelight when on August 11, a bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan ordered the Municipal Corporation of Delhi authorities to catch stray dogs and build shelters for them with a capacity of 5,000 within eight weeks.
The order prohibited dogs from being released back onto the streets and made their sterilization, vaccination and de-worming mandatory. It was also directed that the shelter should have CCTV, adequate staff, food and health care facilities. However, animal lovers opposed this order of the Supreme Court.
After this the case was handed over to a bench of three judges headed by Justice Vikram Nath. On August 22, the bench modified the August 11 order and ordered that the dogs would be released from the shelter after de-worming and vaccination. With this, the scope of the case was extended to the whole of India.