Context

• Recently, Croatia imposed stricter penalties for acts of cruelty, especially the abandonment of household pets.

Key Points

• Amendments to the Croatian Penal Code increase the punishment for causing unnecessary pain or suffering to animals and for killing or seriously mistreating animals.
• Currently when countries around the world are reforming their animal cruelty laws and increasing penalties for animal cruelty. Around the same time, in India, an incident involving the killing of a community dog, Jai, by a resident of a housing society in Mumbai has intensified calls for increasing the penalties prescribed by Indian law for animal cruelty.
• #JusticeForJai is also being circulated on social media platforms apart from prayer meetings and candlelight vigils demanding stricter criminal laws against animal cruelty.
• On Punishment Principles Over the years, there has been much discussion about the inadequacies in the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act (1960), which is the primary law criminalising various forms of cruelty to animals in the country.
• The poor implementation of this law and the low penalties it prescribes are often cited as reasons for its failure to achieve its main objective of preventing cruelty to animals.

Ineffectiveness of old law

• When we talk about the principles of punishment in this law, the PCA Act appears to be very ineffective.
• According to various theories of punishment, there can be three main goals of punishing someone for committing a crime: retribution (punishment given to avenge the crime); deterrence (punishment given to deter the criminal and the general public from committing such crimes in the future), and reform or rehabilitation (punishment given to improve and shape the future behaviour of the criminal).
• Bailable offences, weak penalties In its current form, the PCA Act fails to achieve all this.
• Most of the offences under this Act are bailable and non-cognizable.
• Further, the amount prescribed as fine under the PCA Act is the same as prescribed in its predecessor, the PCA Act 1890.
• This means that the fine amounts are insignificant (as low as ₹10 in many cases) as they have not been amended for 130 years.
• Additionally, the law is written in such a way that the court dealing with the issue has the discretion to choose between imprisoning or imposing a fine on the accused.
• This allows perpetrators of animal cruelty to get away with the most cruel forms of animal cruelty by simply paying a fine in most cases.
• Apart from the above there is no provision in the law for 'community service' such as volunteering at an animal shelter as a punishment, which could potentially reform offenders.

Efforts made for new bill

• In November 2022, the draft PCA (Amendment) Bill, 2022 was published for public comments by the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying.
• Despite widespread public support for the draft bill, it was not introduced in Parliament.
• The draft bill includes important amendments to the 1960 Act such as inclusion of five fundamental freedoms for animals, increase in the amount of money to be paid as punishment and fine for various offences and inclusion of new cognizable offences.
• Although this is certainly a major improvement over the current law, it is applicable only in certain cases such as gross cruelty and killing of an animal.
• Therefore, even if the draft bill becomes law, it will still be possible for criminals to pay nominal fines and avoid imprisonment for certain acts of extreme cruelty.
• However, it is important to understand that despite its limitations, the enactment of the draft bill could be a major step forward for animal law in India.

Important facts for exam

Important laws for animal protection in India

• Indian Penal Code (IPC)
• Indian Penal Code (IPC) 1860
• Section 428 and 429 of IPC
• Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960
• Wildlife Protection Act, 1972