Animal dissections to be made optional in schools

The Union human resource development ministry told the Delhi high court on Monday it would make animal dissections optional for school students.

Following this submission by central government standing counsel Meera Bhatia, a division bench consisting of Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice D K Jain disposed of a public interest petition moved by school student Sarika Sancheti, politician-activist Maneka Gandhi and others seeking a ban on animal dissections. The petitioners said that if dissections were not banned, they should at least be made optional.

Disposing of the petition, the bench hoped that the government would implement its decision soon.

Bhatia placed on the court's record the latest letter written by the HRD ministry to the inspector general, Wildlife Board, stating that at a recent high-level meeting attended by representatives of the Union HRD and environment ministries, the statutory committee on experiments on animals, the Central Board for Secondary Education and the National Council of Educational Research and Training, it was decided to make animal dissections optional for school students.

Counsel Raj Panjwani, appearing for the petitioners, had contended that ''needless and unnecessary'' experiments on animals in schools were not only cruel to animals but also to students, whose right to conscience was violated by the forced dissections.

He also cited the decision of the statutory committee on ''supervision and control of experiments on animals'' that experiments on animals in schools should be banned.

While the Union environment ministry had earlier agreed to make such experiments optional, the HRD ministry and the CBSE had been insisting that they continue.