Calcutta High Court Orders Formation of Inspection Committee to Submit Report on Unlicensed and Unfit Carriage Horses in Response to Peta India, Cape Foundation Petition

For Immediate Release:

22 August 2022

Contact:

Hiraj Laljani; [email protected]

Monica Chopra; [email protected]

Kolkata – Today, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court comprising of CJ Prakash Srivastava and CJ Rajarshi Bhardwaj ordered the constitution of an inspection committee to urgently submit a report on unlicensed and unfit horses used to haul tourist carriages in Kolkata. As per the Hon’ble court’s direction, the inspection committee is to include a representative from the West Bengal Animal Resources Development Department, the Animal Welfare Board of India, PETA India and CAPE Foundation, and horse owners.

“We thank the Hon’ble court for recognising the need for action on unlicensed and unfit horses used in the city. Numerous inspection reports have established that sick, badly injured and emaciated horses are forced to haul carriages full of tourists in Kolkata and many are operating without the requisite license to do so,” says PETA India Senior Legal Counsel Arunima Kedia. “Mumbai and Delhi have already prohibited the use of horses for pulling carriages or tongas, and mechanical means, such as beautiful e-carriages or e-rickshaws, are being used instead. Kind people in Kolkata and around the country appeal to Kolkata to do the same.”

Numerous recent assessment reports by PETA India have established that more than 100 horses used for rides in the city are anaemic, malnourished, and chronically starved; some suffer from severe injuries, including bone fractures; and many are forced to live amid their own waste on filthy, decrepit, and illegally occupied premises in the city, including an encroachment area under a flyover.

PETA India has also compiled a factsheet of numerous reported road accidents in Kolkata involving horses, highlighting the dangers of using them to haul tourists. Such accidents cause the animals pain and suffering and pose safety risks to the passengers in the carriages and commuters on the road.

PETA India notes that using injured and malnourished horses for carriage rides violates the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. The lack of a system for the collection and disposal of horse faeces is in apparent contempt of the Calcutta High Court. Through an order dated 22 January 2013, the court had directed that “measures be taken by the owners of each hackney carriage for removing dung excreted by the horses”.

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

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