A plea in Supreme Court to amplify Penalties under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960

Before the Supreme Court a PIL has been filed to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 (PCA) in order to include strict punishment for the perpetrators of animal cruelty.

The petitioner, Advocate Sankalp Golatkar, has contended that the root cause of exponential rise in animal cruelty is the minimal punishment imposed on the perpetrators under the Act, where they just go away by paying Rs. 50 fine with no imprisonment.

He also prayed the Hon’ble Court that the impugned Act should be amended in a time bound manner by taking into the consideration the Draft Animal Welfare Act, 2011, the Animal Welfare Bill 2014 and the Private Member Bill, 2016 that proposed to expand the scope of animal cruelty and enhance penalties for the said offence but were not passed by the parliament.

He also pointed out that India has been given grade ‘C’ by the Animal Protection Index 2020 which ranks 50 countries around the world according to their Animal Welfare Policy and Legislation.

He submitted that the government has failed to amend any penalties in PCA Act in 60 yrs. Attention has been drawn towards the Supreme Court remarks in Animal Welfare Board of India Vs. A. Nagaraja & Ors. (2014) 7 SCC 547, whereby a division bench opined that the penalty prescribed in the PCA Act are inadequate and the parliament is expected to make proper amendment in the Act.

The petitioner has prayed the offences under Section-428 (Mischief by killing or maiming animal of value 10 rupees) and 429 of IPC (Mischief by killing or maiming cattle etc. of any value or any animal of value of 50 rupees) made applicable to all animals irrespective of their value.

He also asserted that the Indian Constitution recognizes animal right under Article 48A (Protection and improvement of environment and safeguarding of forests and wildlife) Article 51A (g) (duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life and to have compassion for living creatures.