The Pet Shop (Registration and Regulation) Rules, 2018 were issued under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960, the Section 38 of which specified the attempt to impose some formal regulation on the previously overlooked pet industry in India. In most years, pets in pet shops were kept in poor housing, purchased through unregulated breeders and usually were sold pre-weaned or in poor condition. The 2018 Rules gave an undertaking of a paradigm shift by requiring mandatory registration, monthly veterinary checks, welfare requirements and provision of traceability. Six years after the time of their enactment however these provisions are of the most laxly applied of animal-welfare statutes in the country. The results of field surveys, judicial observations, and RTI studies point to the fact that there is almost total non-conformance and, therefore, leaves an essential question: why has such a strong legal framework become powerless in practice?
The Rules themselves are not the problem. Rule 3(2) makes the operators of pet shops to be registered with certificates to be placed in prominent places. Rule 6 is that pet shops be located in permanent structures whereas Rule 7 is that a minimum of basic requirements in regards to welfare such as adequate space, ventilation, drinking water and cleaning daily are established. It is also prescribed that the breeder registries, health records, mortality logs and customer details be kept and monthly inspected by a registered veterinarian. Combined these provisions represent a whole regulatory framework that, when implemented, may significantly improve the situation of animals.
In reality though, there is empirical evidence that compliance is practically non-existent. A 2025 survey of thirty-four pet shops in eight zones of Delhi revealed that they all had no valid registration certificate displayed or held. A lot of them were working at temporary stands or small basement areas, which is a direct contravention of Rule 6. Violation of Rule 7 was rampant: the size of cages was not enough, there was no water or ventilation, and, in some cases, the puppies were sold before they were weaned. This is not just in Delhi, but inMs. Paramita Sen v. State of Tripura (2022), the petition was filed in which it was found that all the twelve pet shops in Agartala were unregistered; subsequently the Tripura High Court was surprised that no action had been taken by the authorities against such apparent statutory violations. Likewise, a query filed in an RTI in a 2022 PIL at the Delhi High Court showed that, four years into the existence of the Rules, no pet shop had been registered by the State Animal Welfare Board in the national capital. The same dark truth has been thus admitted upon by the judiciary after judiciary: The Rules are known to exist on paper, but mostly have not been enforced.
The main reason behind this failure is the acute lack of capacity in the State Animal Welfare Boards (SAWBs) which are the main enforcement bodies. SAWBs do not have many inspectors, administrative personnel, vehicles, and operational budgets. Certain states have boards that sit rarely and lack full-time officers that could handle registration applications and carry out inspections. Even the theoretically good regulatory system cannot operate without proper personnel. The registration under Rule thus, is not an operating fact but an abstract one.
Another systemic disjunction is on the governance of municipalities. SAWBs are mandated with the role of registering, whereas the municipal corporations are mandated with mapping of all available pet shops, assisting in inspections, terminating the trade licences of offenders and imposing the law within the city boundaries. The municipal authorities in most urban centres are either not aware of the 2018 Rules or only suppose that the veterinary or state authorities are the only authorities in charge. Such a mix of jurisdictions creates a regulatory vacuum where no single agency is making a decisive move. As a result, the pet shops still operate without restraint, despite the fact that non-conformity has been effectively recorded.
The third significant issue is the insufficiency of penalties according to the PCA Act. In spite of the possibility of imposing standards by the Pet Shop Rules, the remedy of offense is through Section 11 of the PCA Act, where fines against cruelty are limited to a nominal amount (e.g. 5000-10000 rupees as a first time offence). This has been widely criticised as a low deterrent that makes enforcement useless. Being unregistered and corner cutting is much more lucrative to many of the shop owners than keeping to the welfare standards. Economic incentives therefore favour illicit practices especially with the probability of inspection being insignificant.
The booming online pet sales has resulted in a parallel marketplace, which is unregulated and on which, through its conceptualization, the Rules are unsatisfactory.An industry examination of 2020 concluded that none of the online sellers, be it on OLX, Instagram or WhatsApp, were registered under the Rules. Thousands of puppies, kittens, birds, and exotic pets are sold through the social media platforms with no welfare checks, veterinary supervision or traceability. Since the Rules are geared towards a bricks-and-mortar store, online trade is virtually uncontrollable and, therefore, simplifies the illegal wildlife trafficking that only gains momentum when using individual messaging applications.
To add to these problems is the inability to control breeders. The Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules, 2017 require registration of breeders and claims welfare, but breeder registration is as uncommon as pet-shop registration. As a result, the majority of animals found in pet stores have been bred in unregistered, undocumented facilities where welfare standards are not up to standard. In the absence of breeder supervision, the record keeping provisions of the Pet Shop Rules (which are aimed at providing traceability) are nullified, and the chain of regulation falls at its first terminal.
The Indian judicial system has put the importance of animal welfare in the constitution on numerous occasions. In Animal Welfare Board of India v A Nagarajan (2014), the Supreme Court declared that animals have an intrinsic worth and they should be treated with dignity and compassion as per Article 51A(g). This historic ruling gives constitutional grounds to implement welfare laws. However, despite this juridical excelling, the real application of the Pet Shop Rules is still random, irregular and generally symbolic.
The collapse of the 2018 Rules eventually illustrates a larger point: a law itself does not change an industry. The effective regulation requires the institutional capacity, interdepartmental coordination, significant penalties, and the awareness of people. Even the most liberal standards of welfare cannot be enforced in the absence of inspectors, clear jurisdictional mandates and deterrent punishments. This is necessary to strengthen SAWBs, incorporate municipalities, regulate online sales, create a national public registry of registered shops, and implement more severe punitive measures within the PCA Act. Breeder traceability should also be included in the reforms by micro-chipping and digital certification to seal the gaps in the supply chain.