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The court emphasized that the more defenseless a creature, the greater its entitlement to protection from human cruelty.
A Delhi Court, recently, sentenced a man to one year of imprisonment for throwing acid on a dog while citing German philosopher Immanuel Kant. “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of man by his treatment of animals”, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Richa Sharma reiterated.
In February 2020, a resident of Paharganj filed a case alleging she witnessed the man throwing acid on her dog’s eye, face, and other body parts. She further claimed that the person also abused her and threatened to kill the dog while she was bathing it.
The accused pleaded with the court to exercise leniency during sentencing, citing his age of 70 years. Nonetheless, the court denied the request and opined, “The courts are not obliged to make efforts either to give latitude to the prosecution or loosely construe the law in favour of the accused. The traditional dogmatic hyper-technical approach has to be replaced by criminal trial. Criminal jurisdiction cannot be considered to be a utopian thought, but has to be considered as a part and parcel of human civilisation and realities of life”.
The court described the act of throwing a corrosive substance that resulted in the dog losing an eye as ‘serious and grave’. The court observed that ordering a lenient punishment would send a negative message to society.
The court further placed reliance on Mahatma Gandhi’s quotes, reiterating “To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to the protection by man from the cruelty of man”.
The court while sentencing noted that, “The prosecution has established the identity of the accused beyond all reasonable doubts and has further proved that the accused person caused injury to the dog”.
In March this year, the court convicted the man for the offences under Section 429 (mischief by killing or maiming cattle, etc.) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and Section 11 (1) (treating animals with cruelty) of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. It awarded one year of simple imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs 10,000, to the man.
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