UPSC Articles
SC’s order on Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals (Care And Maintenance Of Case Property Animals) Rules, 2017
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II – Judiciary
In news
- The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to delete its three-year-old law.
- The law under question is the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Care and Maintenance of Case Property Animals) Rules, 2017 notified on May 23, 2017.
- The rules were framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
- It allowed seizure and subsequent confiscation of livestock from people who depended on these animals for a livelihood, even before they were found guilty of cruelty towards them.
Key takeaways
- The SC warned the government that it would “stay” the implementation of a 2017 law, which allowed authorities to seize cattle on a mere suspicion that they suffered cruel treatment at the hands of their owners or were being primed for slaughter.
- According to the law, these animals would then be lodged in gaushalas as case property to await the court’s verdict.
- Thus, a farmer, a livestock owner or a cattle trader loses his animals before being found guilty of the charge of cruelty.
- SC ruled that these rules are contrary to Section 29 of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, under which only a person convicted of cruelty can lose his animal.
Do you know?
- The 2017 Rules allow a Magistrate to forfeit the cattle of an owner facing trial under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
- The animals are then sent to infirmaries, gaushalas, pinjarapole, etc.
- These authorities can further give such animals for “adoption”.
