Sections 3 and 11: The Duty, and What Counts as Cruelty

In one line

Section 11 is the list of things that count as cruelty, and section 3 is the duty that sits behind it.

In exam wording: section 3 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 imposes on every person having the care or charge of any animal the duty to take all reasonable measures to ensure its well-being and to prevent the infliction of unnecessary pain or suffering; section 11(1) lists fifteen acts, in clauses (a) to (o), which constitute cruelty and are punishable with the fines the sub-section prescribes; section 11(2) deems an owner to have committed an offence where he has failed to exercise reasonable care and supervision; section 11(3) exempts five categories, including any matter dealt with in Chapter IV; section 12 punishes the practice of phooka or doom dev; and section 13 provides for the destruction of a suffering animal.

The fifteen acts, grouped

Physical ill-treatment: (a), (c), (d), (l). Beating, kicking, over-riding, over-driving, over-loading, torturing or otherwise treating an animal so as to subject it to unnecessary pain or suffering; wilfully and unreasonably administering an injurious drug or substance; conveying or carrying an animal so as to subject it to unnecessary pain; mutilating an animal or killing it, including a stray dog, by strychnine injection in the heart or in any other unnecessarily cruel manner.

Working an unfit animal: (b). Employing in any work or labour, or for any purpose, an animal which by reason of its age, disease, infirmity, wound, sore or other cause is unfit.

Confinement and neglect: (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j), (k). Keeping an animal in a cage that does not permit reasonable opportunity for movement; keeping it chained or tethered for an unreasonable time on an unreasonably short or heavy chain; neglecting to exercise a dog habitually chained or closely confined; failing to provide sufficient food, drink or shelter; abandoning an animal without reasonable cause in circumstances likely to cause suffering from starvation or thirst; wilfully permitting a diseased animal to go at large in a street or, without reasonable excuse, permitting a diseased or disabled animal to die in a street; offering for sale or possessing without reasonable cause an animal suffering by reason of mutilation, starvation, thirst, overcrowding or other ill-treatment.

Entertainment: (m), (n), (o). Solely with a view to providing entertainment, confining an animal, including tying an animal as bait in a tiger or other sanctuary, so as to make it an object of prey; or inciting an animal to fight or bait another; organising, keeping, using or acting in the management of a place for animal fighting or baiting, or permitting or offering a place to be so used, or receiving money for admission; and promoting or taking part in a shooting match in which animals are released from captivity for the purpose.