Author: Yashi Kesharwani

Cruelty against animals has acquired constitutional relevance in Indian jurisprudence not through abstract moral reasoning, but through a specific interpretive route that recognises animals as sentient beings capable of experiencing pain and suffering. This recognition becomes particularly significant in the context of sexual cruelty and sexually exploitative acts against animals, where harm is not merely physical but intrinsically violative of bodily integrity and dignity. 

Indian courts have established the normative basis for such protection by interpreting animal welfare statutes in conjunction with constitutional values, particularly the duty imposed on citizens under Article 51A(g), thereby grounding the prohibition of sexual violence against animals within a broader constitutional commitment to compassion and humane treatment.

Constitutional provisions for Animal Cruelty:

Article 51A(g) of the Constitution of India imposes a fundamental duty upon every citizen to safeguard and enhance the natural environment, including forests, rivers, lakes, and wildlife, and to act with compassion towards all living beings.

Complementing this obligation, Article 48A places a corresponding responsibility upon the State to protect and improve the environment as well as wildlife. Further, the placement of animal welfare within Entry 17B of the Concurrent List reflects a shared legislative competence, enabling both the Union and the States to enact measures aimed at preventing cruelty to animals and protecting wild fauna and birds.

This provision has not been treated as a symbolic directive alone; rather, it has been judicially employed to justify legislative competence, regulatory restrictions, and state intervention aimed at preventing animal suffering. In State of Gujarat v. Keshav Sajanbhai Harijan (2004), the Supreme Court of India expressly relied on Article 51A(g) to affirm that compassion for animals forms part of the constitutional ethos, thereby legitimising laws that curtail human conduct in the interest of animal protection. 

The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the case of Animal Welfare Board of India v. A Nagaraja and others wherein the court was concerned with the issues regarding the rights of animals under our Constitution, laws, culture, tradition, religion, and ethology in connection with sports like Jallikattu, Bullock Cart Races etc. To understand the scope of Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, the Hon’ble Apex Court in the said judgment highlighted that animal rights from both a national and international standpoint, it becomes clear that all species have an inalienable right to exist and should be legally protected, with the exception of those that are necessary. Animals must have their rights and privacy respected and shielded from illegal attacks. They also have honor and dignity that cannot be unjustly taken away from them.

Importantly, this constitutional positioning does not itself prescribe punishment, but it supplies the normative foundation upon which statutory penal provisions must rest.

Animal sexual violence framework under Indian laws:

Prior to the enactment of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, such conduct was directly criminalised under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Section 377 reads “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years.” and thus explicitly includes bestiality within its scope. The provision thus operated on three distinct planes;

i) consensual same-sex relations between adults,

ii) non-consensual sexual acts, and

iii) inter-species sexual acts. Its application to bestiality was never incidental or implied, as animals were expressly mentioned as protected subjects under the section.

The constitutional challenge to Section 377 in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India culminated in its partial invalidation on the ground that criminalising consensual sexual relations between adults of the same sex violated fundamental rights to equality, dignity, and privacy. The judicial reasoning rested on the absence of harm and the presence of consent in private, adult relationships, rendering state interference disproportionate.

Crucially, however, the Court was careful to draw a doctrinal boundary. The provision was read down only to the extent that it applied to consensual sexual conduct between adults. When the observation regarding natural order meaning the possibility of conception applied in the case of bestiality, it becomes flawed logic as the essential element of consenting adults is not present when one partner is an animal. The logic was thus that consent-based human intimacy and sexual violence, particularly violence involving animals, incapable of consent, could not be treated within the same constitutional frame.

Inadequacy of Framework:

This distinction, maintained at the judicial level, did not survive the legislative transition from the IPC to the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The omission of Section 377 in its entirety from the new penal code has resulted in the disappearance of a specific criminal provision addressing bestiality.

However, Section 325 of BNS 2023 only provides punishment for killing or maiming an animal by mischief. It prescribes five years’ imprisonment and a fine, but excludes sexual violence.

In its place, acts of sexual violence against animals are left to be addressed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. Section 11 of the Act defines various forms of cruelty, including conduct that causes unnecessary pain or suffering.

The act of bestiality could come under the wider terms of S.11(1)(a), which penalises the following conduct: “ beats, kicks, over-rides, over-drives, over-loads, tortures or otherwise treats any animal so as to subject it to unnecessary pain or suffering or causes or, being the owner permits, any animals to be so treated” Here, the conduct leading to torture and resultant ‘unnecessary pain or suffering’ could widely couch the issue of sexual assaults against animals.

However, the penal consequences prescribed under Section 11 are notably limited: a first-time offender may be punished with a fine extending up to fifty rupees, while subsequent offences may attract a fine ranging from twenty-five to one hundred rupees, or imprisonment for a term that may extend to three months, or both. These penalties were designed with regulatory cruelty in mind and are ill-suited to address acts involving extreme sexual violence.

In India, dogs are raped every day in every one lakh streets, according to a survey done by Rakesh Shukla, the founder of Voice of Stray Dogs 20. It is comparable to the nation’s rate of rapes of women. The 2009 rape of a stray dog by 26-year-old cab driver Mahesh Kamath became a landmark case in India, where an inquiry was conducted similarly to that conducted on human victims.

The inadequacy of this framework becomes evident when viewed against documented instances of animal sexual abuse. A guy was arrested in the Labrador Sexual Abuse Case (April 2025) for sexually assaulting a beloved dog. Animals suffered greatly as a result of the crime. Once more, the lack of BNS provisions forced the police to rely on the PCA. The charges were still merely symbolic and feeble. The shortcomings of India’s current animal protection legislation were further highlighted by this case. 

Once more, a staff member at an equestrian academy sexually assaulted a mare in the Nagpur Equestrian Case (May 2025). Animal welfare groups demanded action in response to the public outcry.  However, only the PCA was used in the court case.

Legal commentary and empirical discussions in academic literature and media reports have recorded multiple cases across different states involving sexual assault of animals, often prosecuted under general cruelty provisions due to the absence of a specific offence. These accounts demonstrate not only the occurrence of such acts but also the difficulty faced by enforcement agencies in invoking proportionate criminal sanctions. The reliance on Section 11 of the PCA Act in such cases results in a mismatch between the gravity of the offence and the punishment imposed, thereby undermining the deterrent function of criminal law.

Conclusion: 

In the end, it becomes evident that constitutional interpretation and statutory design are at odds. The penal system does not provide a suitable response to one of the most severe types of cruelty, namely sexual violence against animals, even though Indian constitutional jurisprudence has gradually acknowledged animal suffering as a matter of serious legal concern based on compassion, dignity, and the recognition of animals as sentient beings.

The reading down of Section 377 was specifically predicated on the presence of consent and absence of harm conditions, which are fundamentally inapplicable to acts involving animals, and was carefully restricted to consensual sexual relations between adults. Rather, legislative silence is the cause of the current inadequacy. Without the introduction of a specifically tailored provision addressing bestiality, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita’s complete omission of Section 377 has effectively decriminalized animal sexual violence beyond the minimal regulatory penalties under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.

The continued reliance on Section 11 of the PCA Act, with its nominal fines and limited imprisonment, reflects a mismatch between the gravity of the offence and the punishment prescribed, thereby undermining both deterrence and expressive condemnation in criminal law. Despite constitutional guidance and legislative recommendations highlighting the need for reform, the absence of a specific offence addressing sexual violence against animals exposes a critical gap in India’s animal protection regime. Addressing this gap is essential not to expand criminal law indiscriminately, but to ensure coherence between constitutional values and statutory enforcement in cases of extreme cruelty.