The Karnataka High Court has disposed of a petition filed by two Estate Officers of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) seeking to quash criminal proceedings in connection with the disappearance of 21 stray dogs from the DRDO campus in Bengaluru. The Court noted that the investigation had been completed and a chargesheet filed before the concerned trial court.
Justice M Nagaprasanna, presiding over the single judge bench, recorded that one of the petitioners, Rakesh Kumar Sahu, did not figure in the chargesheet and had consequently been dropped from the array of accused. The second petitioner, however, was retained as an accused in the final report submitted by the investigating agency.
The Additional Solicitor General and CGC Vinay Venugopal informed the Court that the first petitioner was not included in the chargesheet. When counsel for the complainant objected to this exclusion, the Court stated that while it could not curtail the complainant's rights, the appropriate remedy lay in approaching the trial court to challenge the chargesheet if aggrieved by its contents.
The Court reiterated that the investigation stood complete and the chargesheet had been filed, with the first petitioner excluded from the array of accused and the second petitioner charged. It affirmed that liberty was reserved to the complainant to seek recourse before the trial court if dissatisfied with the filing of the final report.
The subject petition was accordingly disposed of, with liberty further reserved to the parties to approach the High Court in the future if necessary.
The case originated from the alleged disappearance of 21 stray dogs from the DRDO campus. Earlier, while considering the matter, the Court had described the circumstances as 'peculiar' and 'unsettling', observing that the dogs were allegedly removed from the campus 'in a clandestine and wholly unethical manner' and that their whereabouts remained unknown. It had emphasized that the case concerned not merely missing animals but twenty-one voiceless beings who had disappeared without trace and whose fate remained unknown.
Initially, Crime No. 153/2026 was registered on 09.03.2026 by the Mahadevapura Police Station against the accused employees for offences under Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and Sections 240, 325, 270, and 61(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
The DRDO officers had approached the High Court seeking to quash the proceedings, contending that they were being made vicariously liable for an alleged attempt by unknown persons to relocate stray dogs from the DRDO premises. In an interim order passed in March, the High Court had stayed the criminal proceedings. The stay was subsequently vacated in June, when the Court permitted the police to complete the investigation within six weeks, while directing that the petitioner officers should not be subjected to harassment or coercive measures during the investigation.
The case is titled Rakesh Kumar Sahu & Anr v. State of Karnataka, bearing Case No. WP 4677/2026, and the citation is 2026 LiveLaw (Kar) 312.