PETA India Moves Supreme Court to Curb Kambala Cruelty, Submits New Investigation Findings to State  

For Immediate Release:

10 March 2026

Contact: 

Sanskriti Bansore; [email protected] 

Vikram Chandravanshi; [email protected]    

Bengaluru — Following a recent investigation of Karnataka buffalo race events, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals India (PETA India) has filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Hon’ble Supreme Court challenging the 14 November order of the Karnataka High Court, which permitted violent buffalo races (often advertised as “Kambala”) outside the coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi. PETA India states that the High Court’s conclusion that such events represent culture “statewide” — misinterprets the law, inflates a narrow exemption to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act 1960, and paves the way for commercializing cruelty to animals using “tradition” as an excuse. PETA India has also submitted fresh video and photographic evidence of buffaloes being mercilessly beaten with wooden sticks, yanked with nose ropes, collapsing, and with visible wounds at various Kambala events held in late 2025 and early 2026, to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, urging him to end the violent spectacles in the state altogether. An investigation report from the events has also been filed before the Hon’ble Supreme Court. 

PETA India’s SLP submits that the PCA Act 1960, as amended by Karnataka, only carves out a limited and conditional exemption for “Kambala” and “bull/bullock cart races” when they are “normally held as a part of tradition and culture”, a factual circumstance historically tied to select coastal districts. Races held in non-traditional cities such as Bengaluru or Shivamogga, therefore, remain prohibited under the PCA Act and in violation of the Supreme Court’s judgments in AWBI v Union of India (2023) and A. Nagaraja (2014). Meanwhile, PETA India’s earlier review petition filed before the Hon’ble Supreme Court in 2023 seeking reinstatement of a complete prohibition on Kambala and similar events remains pending. 

As seen in video footage gathered by PETA India across various recent events, buffaloes used in these events are controlled through pain. They are violently yanked by thick nose ropes pierced through their sensitive nasal septum, slapped, jabbed, and repeatedly beaten with hard weapons. Many attempt to flee, fall, or struggle to breathe. Numerous buffaloes observed during the events frothed at the mouth, a sign of exhaustion and heat stress, while others bore visible open marks from being struck. Buffaloes are prey animals who naturally avoid chaos, yet during races they are thrust into loud, crowded, brightly lit environments, where fear and distress are exploited for entertainment.  

PETA India’s evidence submitted to the Karnataka High Court and now the Supreme Court includes findings from the 2023 Bengaluru buffalo races, where coastal buffaloes were subjected to long-distance transport, whipping, and longer tracks. The event was highly commercial in nature and held as an entertainment fair rather than a cultural practice. Corporate sponsorships were displayed prominently across the venue, including on floodlight towers and race screens, while luxury car brands, jewellery houses, furniture companies, and major banks hosted stalls at Palace Grounds. Commercial kiosks, VIP galleries, paid parking, political banners, and luckydraw coupons for luxury goods on entry passes, further demonstrated that the event was designed for profit and spectacle rather than tradition. 

“India’s tech hub, Bengaluru, must not be tainted with an archaic and outdated spectacle of grown men abusing vulnerable buffaloes for their amusement,” said Vikram Chandravanshi, Senior Policy and Legal Advisor, PETA India. “At a time when India is hosting the AI Impact Summit, it is time to relegate cruel spectacles like kambala to the history books. We ask the Supreme Court to uphold the laws that prevent the cruelty from taking place in new areas.”

The State of Karnataka previously defended the amendment to the PCA Act 1960 before the Supreme Court on the express premise that Kambala is traditionally practiced only in Udupi and Dakshin Kannada. Its later claim before the High Court that Kambala represents statewide culture contradicts its own earlier submissions and undermines the basis on which the cultural exception was upheld. PETA India urges the Hon’ble Supreme Court to prevent the stretching of a cruel local practice into a statewide cultural license for commercial gains. 

PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA India , please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram. 

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