On being awarded his Master’s Degree in English Literature and Law in 1975, Raj Panjwani was enrolled at the age of 21 years as a member to the Supreme Court of India Bar and the High Court of Delhi Bar. He has since then been practicing law, specializing in animal welfare and environmental issues and legislation.

Raj Panjwani currently has the distinction of holding the Vice Chair, Animal Law Committee of the American Bar Association. In India, he is the Legal Counsel for the:

•   Animal Welfare Board of India
•   The Committee for Prevention of Cruelty and Supervision of Experiments on Animals
•   The Donkey Sanctuary (U.K)
•   WWF-India
•   Greenpeace
•   People for Animals
•   The Wildlife Protection Society of India
•   The Goa Foundation
•   Toxic Link
•   The Orissa Wildlife Protection Society,
among other bodies.

Raj Panjwani has successfully conducted cases for the protection of wildlife and their habitat, particularly of Olive Ridley Turtles, Tibetan Antelopes, Chinkaras, Asian Elephants etc. He has appeared as a counsel in cases filed by the traders, challenging an absolute ban on trade in ivory, fur & skin of endangered species, Shahtoosh etc.

In October 2004, was appointed as Amicus Curae to assist the Full Bench of the High Court of Bombay in a petition challenging the validity of the Animal Birth Control Rules. He has been a member of the Labeling Committee, Government of India; member of the Committee for Prevention of Cruelty and Supervision of Experiments on Animals; member of the High Powered Committee appointed by the High Court of Delhi for the implementation of laws pertaining to Wildlife; member of the Committee on the Delhi Slaughter House; and member of the Committee on Stray Animals in Urban Areas.

He is the founder of the Animal and Environment Legal Defense Fund. He has drafted several laws for the Government of India, including the

•   Performing Animals (Registration) Rules, 2001;
•   Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Transport of Animals on Foot) Rules, 2001;
•   Transport of Animals (Amendment) Rules, 2001;
•   Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Slaughter House) Rules, 2001;
•   Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Establishment & Registration of SPCA’s) Rules, 2001;
•   Transport, Riding, Trekking of Equine Rules, 2002.

He has authored a book entitled “Courting Wildlife” and co-authored a volume on Animal Laws of India. In 2002, he was awarded a Citation by the Supreme Court of India Bar Association for “Adding Knowledge to the Practice of Law".

A few words with Raj Panjwani...

1. How did you become involved in the field of animal protection law?

Involvement is a process and rarely a decision. It is based on various influences that each one of us goes through. As a child, I first witnessed my grandmother and thereafter my mother make their first Roti (Indian bread) for the crow, the second and third for the cow, the fourth and the fifth for the dog. The reason for their following this particular order, I have never been able to decipher. These rotis would be placed at their designated points of feeding. None of these animals belonged to any particular individual or household. At least now, I can guess that the reason is possibly because life can never be a subject matter of property.

Later during my college days, packed with the enthusiasm of a teens, I accompanied some of my friends to go hunting. There, I witnessed a helpless blue bull ( Deer specie) with cow like eyes and elongated ears, being shot. It was my first and last such experience. This experience was essential as it exposed to me to the dichotomy of life. It left an imprint the impact of which I would understand- much later in life.  Thereafter I witnessed the onslaught of concrete, the vanishing greens and the disappearance of the birds which used to frequent the orchards next to my home. The lakes of Bhopal were now polluted. The infamous Union Carbide gas leak, which was responsible for the massacre of thousands of human lives, also was guilty for the disappearance of all animal life, including the housefly- in the same city.

In the mid seventies when I decided to take up law as a career, the college curriculum did not even have environmental law or animal law as a subject. After college (1976), I started practicing law, focussing on land and matrimonial issues. It was only towards the late 1980s’ that I got my first exposure to wildlife issues in the form of a case in the Supreme Court. My brief- to save a bear from being exported to a foreign country. I think it was this case which rekindled the dormant desire to do something more - emulating what my grandmother and mother did, to help forms of life other than humans. The turning point were the visits to the Delhi slaughter house in 1995 as a Commissioner, appointed by the Delhi High Court ,to inspect and submit a report on the conditions therein. It was the most gruesome and horrifying sight.


2. Do you have any words of wisdom to share with Australia's budding animal lawyers?

Budding to empower. Empowerment is the greatest service which we lawyers can undertake by using our legal acumen in an effective and proactive manner. There cannot be a greater service than the endeavour to empower those who cannot defend or protect themselves. We are fortunate to have the knowledge not only to get the wrong doer punished but also to bring about an attitudinal change to the mindset of our society as well as in legal jurisprudence. So go ahead and file public actions challenging the very concept of property as being made applicable to other sentient beings. File actions for their housing, upkeep and care wherever the laws are weak.  Change can never be brought about  unless you have the will to achieve and put into motion the thoughts which your conscience accepts to be just and true. There would always be cynics- that is just a part of the larger debate.

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