Every animal deserves dignity, respect and love. They definitely deserve a life
beyond the laboratory cage. Urge the Government of India to withdraw the new draft animal experimentation rules!

 

For decades, India has mandated the principle of 3R (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) in animal experimentation. We have prohibited cosmetics tested on animals in Indian and also prohibited the import of cosmetics tested on animals. We have done away with repeat toxicity studies for testing of drugs and several batch tests for vaccines. We founded institutions for development of non-animal methodologies, i.e. technology that replaces animals in testing that are more accurate and sustainable. It been over a decade since rehabilitation, often referred to as the 4th R was developed and guidelines to this effect were published.

However, these principles and practices are now in danger. The Government of India, through the Animal Husbandry Department, has published a Draft Rule which goes against the foundation of the law. These proposed Rules put the lives of animals, sciences and health research at risk. Should these Draft Rules be made into law, India will step back into the 50s.

We must prevent it!

Since 2017, Freagles of India has had the privilege of working with hundreds of beagles released from laboratories, helping them discover the world beyond a cold cage. Do you know why beagles are used in laboratories? Not because they are similar to humans! Because they are perfectly sized for humans to hold and control while experimenting. They are neither given a name nor enrichment. Most live merely as tag numbers and die with a deadline given the duration of the experiment they are used for. It is horrific how easy it is for us to normalize something so cruel and continue in the name of science but truly just for
convenience.

But we know the truth. They are NOT tag numbers. They are individuals with distinct personalities. We have watched them experience sunshine, freedom, love and the safety of a home. We watched the dogs who had only known confinement and pain, slowly learn to trust, explore, play and become cherished members of families.

They are not merely animals retired from experiments. Before our eyes, we watched them take their first steps into sunlight, discovering what it means not just to survive but what it means to thrive. They were given a chance.

That is what makes the Draft Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Control and Supervision of Experiment, Breeding and Trading of Laboratory Animals) Rules, 2026, so alarming. At a time when India should be strengthening its animal-welfare safeguards and working to develop cutting edge non-animal technologies, the proposed Draft Rules by the very committee that should protect it, has notified a slew of rules which not only weaken the regulation but that are impractical, do not make sense and defeats the purpose of science.

They weaken oversight of experiments on animals and leave out critical protections concerning rehabilitation and reuse of animals.

Please join us in urging the government to withdraw these rules immediately.

If you sign this petition, we will email the Member Secretary (CCSEA) with the below text on your behalf:

Dear Member Secretary,

I have read the Draft Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Control and Supervision of Experiment, Breeding and Trading of Laboratory Animals) Rules, 2026, and urge you to please withdraw it immediately. I am disappointed and appalled at the amendments being recommended by the Committee for Control & Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CCSEA). The objective of the CCSEA is to regulate animal experiments and ensure prevent unnecessary suffering. However, the current proposed rules trivialize the rules brought in by the committee prior and encourages further experimentation violating Section 17 (2) (d) of the parent act of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, under which it was formed.

In the proposed Rules the Institutional Animal Ethics Committees, established to oversee welfare at the institutional level, would be able to approve mild and moderate experiments without referring them to CCSEA. This effectively means that institutions conducting
experiments on animals can approve their own projects, without any accountability or supervision.

The proposed Rules even leave important safeguards for animals before, during and after experimentation to future guidelines, rather than setting out a comprehensive, enforceable framework in the rules themselves. Almost all of the rules brought out in the new rule is against the very rules brought out by the CCSEA in 1968 and 1998.

We call upon your good offices to recognise that true scientific advancement is in developing life-saving products through discovery and innovation without thousands of lives having to pay the price. We demand that the proposed Draft is withdrawn and the Rules are amended to
ensure:

1. Effective oversight: Ensure meaningful CCSEA scrutiny of proposed experiments, rather than allowing institutional committees to make decisions without adequate independent review.
2. Educate CCSEA and IAEC members: Collaborate with other ministries who are working on non-animal technologies and support in ensuring all scientists are aware of the upcoming scientifically advanced non-animal methods available. Animals and non-animal
   methods must not work in isolation. This only hurts India's chances of being a scientific superpower.
3. Prioritize alternatives: List and mandate the use of scientifically validated non-animal methods to ensure no repetitive, unnecessary animal experiments are taking place so the endpoint for then product - be it drug or pesticide or even research, is reached faster and animal use and suffering is reduced wherever possible.

India has an opportunity to build on the progress she has made and continue to lead by example.

You have the power to lead it. Help us advance, not go backwards.

Thank you.

Chinthana Gopinath

Trustee, Freagles of India

Nita Mahurkar

Trustee, Freagles of India