The Punjab and Haryana High Court has accorded the
status oflegal person or entity to
animals, granting them the “corresponding rights, duties,
and liabilities of a living person”. The Bench also provided
guidelines for the accord.
Guidelines:
- It hasfixed load to be carriedby animals and banned their deployment for pulling vehicles inextreme cold and heat conditions.
- Theuse of spike sticks, harness or yoke with spikes,knobs, projections and other sharp instruments were alsobannedin Haryana, to begin with, for avoiding bruises, swelling, abrasions and severe pain to them.
- To avoid inconvenience to animals the court directed the police to ensure that carts driven by animals were given the“right of way”.
- Their use was also limited tonine hours a day in the aggregate,and not more than five hours without a break.
- It also owners to putfluorescent reflectorsin the front and back of their carts and the animals shall also becovered with stripes of fluorescent reflectorsfor their identification at night.
