Explained: The Uttarakhand slaughterhouses row and what courts have said

Explained: The Uttarakhand slaughterhouses row and what courts have said

Jul 8, 2022 - 21:30
 0  24
Explained: The Uttarakhand slaughterhouses row and what courts have said

On Thursday, the Uttarakhand High Court stayed a state government notification declaring Haridwar district a “slaughter-free area” and allowed the slaughter of animals for Eid al-Adha on 10 July at an abattoir in the Manglaur municipality.

This came more than a year after the Uttarakhand government declared all the urban local bodies under the Haridwar district jurisdiction as ‘slaughterhouse-free' and cancelled all the NOCs issued to slaughterhouses, as per The Times of India.

The March 2021 order read:

“In exercise of the powers conferred by section 429A of the Municipal Corporation Act, 1959, and section 237A of the Municipal Act, 1916, I am directing to revoke the clearances given for the operation of animal slaughter schools in all the bodies of Haridwar district.”

That notification, which was welcomed by several BJP leaders, came ahead of the Kumbh Mela.

BJP MLAs from the area had earlier given a letter to then chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, demanding that slaughterhouses not be allowed in a “religious city like Haridwar”, as per the report.

The issue of banning animal slaughter houses in Haridwar has been ongoing for a long time.

 

As per Hindustan Times, local BJP leaders had for long been demanding that that mass slaughter of animals not be allowed in Haridwar, the sacred area that is the gateway to Uttarakhand, which is also called ‘devbhoomi’ (Land of Gods).

Here’s what you need to know about it, what the Uttarakhand court said and what courts around the country have said:

The Uttarakhand slaughterhouses row

In 2017, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh had followed in the footsteps of Uttar Pradesh regarding cracking down on ‘illegal’ slaughterhouses.

In Haridwar, three meat shops were sealed while 11 were shut in Raipur and one in Indore, News 18 report said.

Representational image.

On 20 September, 2018, the high court had directed the state government to seal the illegal slaughterhouses in Uttarakhand within 72 hours, as per Hindustan Times.

It also ordered banning the slaughter of animals in the open and in public view in the whole state while responding to a PIL filed by Haridwar-based Parvez Alam, as per the report.

However, as per The Times of India, residents in Haridwar had in 2020 complained  despite the order, meat shops continue to operate in the city and slaughter animals in the open, and that the district administration and police have failed to take action against them.

The court in its order had said meat should be procured only from licensed slaughterhouses, and no animal should be slaughtered in individual meat shops in the district. Yet, several meat shops where animal are slaughtered are being run in the Haridwar municipal area and adjoining places, the newspaper reported.

Activist JP Badoni told the newspaper that despite the HC ban on slaughter of animals for meat in shops in residential area of the district, police, municipal and food safety authorities haven’t taken action against the rule breakers.

However, Haridwar police claimed they had asked meat shop owners to procure meat only from authorised slaughterhouses. SSP Haridwar Senthil Abudai Krishna Raj S said, “Food safety department and municipal authority are responsible for giving permits and checking status. We just give NOC regarding law and order. We have alerted meat shop owners not to slaughter animals inside their shops.”

Food safety officials said their department has given permission to just six meat shops to sell chicken, that too, after procuring meat from authorised slaughterhouses.

"Food safety officer Kapil Dev told the newspaper, “Slaughtering animals in meat shops was banned by Nainital high court. We have handed out only six licenses to sell meat, keep regular check on these shops time to time and take strict action against law breakers.”

However, a survey by TOI found that several other shops are being run illegally where animals are slaughtered in the open. With no slaughterhouse in Haridwar district, meat sellers have to buy from ones in western UP. This raises their overheads, which is why they are slaughtering animals on their own.

In 2020, the Uttarakhand government said it would bring an ordinance that will empower it to shut down any slaughterhouse in the state. That came amid the backdrop of stiff opposition to the construction of a slaughterhouse in Haridwar.

In July 2021, the court, questioning the constitutionality of a ban on slaughterhouses in Haridwar district, said a civilisation is judged by the way it treats its minorities.

Chief Justice RS Chauhan and Justice Alok Kumar Verma had said democracy means the protection of minorities. "A civilisation is judged only by the way it treats its minorities and a ban like Haridwar’s questions the extent to which the state can determine a citizen’s options.”

The court was hearing a petition that said the prohibition goes against the right to privacy, the right to life and the right to freely practice religion and discriminated against Muslims in Haridwar where towns like Manglaur have a substantial Muslim population.

“Denying hygienic and fresh non-vegetarian food to people of Haridwar district across the limitations of religion and caste amounts to hostile discrimination,” the petition argued.

The petition claimed the ban was “arbitrary and unconstitutional”. The petition challenged this for two reasons: a blanket ban on meat of any kind is unconstitutional, as is Section 237A that the Uttarakhand government had inserted into the Uttar Pradesh Municipalities Act, to give itself the power to declare an area under a municipal corporation, council or nagar panchayat as a slaughter-free zone.

The court said the petition has raised serious fundamental questions and would involve a constitutional interpretation.

Supreme Court of India. ANI

“On similar issues, the Supreme Court had earlier raised concerns that meat ban cannot be forced down the throat of anyone. Tomorrow, you will say nobody should eat meat,” the court said.

Keeping this in mind, the high court observed, the question is whether a citizen has the right to decide his own diet or whether that will be decided by the state.

However, the court maintained that this is a constitutional issue not restricted by festivals and the case needed proper hearing and deliberations.

What did the court say on Thursday?

As per Bar and Bench, Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and JRC Khulbe stayed the government notification as regards its applicability to Manglaur town for Bakri eid celebration on July 10,2022.

The court’s orders came a plea from resident Faisal Hussain who, urging the court to allow slaughter of animals, claimed that it is an essential religious practice in Islam.

The plea asked that slaughtering of animals be allowed in a legally compliant slaughter house already in existence in Manglaur Municipality area which not in operation due to the blanket ban, as per the report.

The court also directed authorities to ensure that no animal slaughter is done outside the mentioned legally compliant slaughter houses.

The bench also directed Manglaur Municipality to inform and persuade people to slaughter of animals only in such slaughter houses and not outside the same.

As per Indian Express, Hussain’s lawyer Kartikey Hari Gupta presented to the court a photograph of last year’s Eid al-Adha celebrations showing large-scale slaughter of animals on open streets in Manglaur. Gupta further argued that banning slaughtering without making the legally compliant slaughterhouse operational would not solve any problem.

Gupta told the court 87.45 per cent of the municipality’s population was Muslim, and that the area is around 45 kilometres from Haridwar town.

Representational image. News18

If the slaughtering of animals is allowed at a slaughterhouse in Manglaur, the religious sentiments of Hindus will not be hurt, he told the court.

Confirming the court stay on the government order, Gupta told Indian Express the slaughterhouse was constructed in February last year, and that a blanket ban was imposed on animal slaughter within a week of its owners applying to start operations.

“In 2011 the high court ordered the construction of a slaughterhouse within three years. But it did not happen, and only in 2016 did the state government permit the Manglaur nagar palika to construct the slaughterhouse in the PPP mode. The construction was completed in February 2021. In March, however, the government declared the entire Haridwar district slaughter-free. We challenged this and said that Manglaur is 45 km away from Haridwar town and thus will not affect the religious sentiments of Hindus. We also mentioned that the slaughterhouse was sanctioned by the government itself,” he said.

With inputs from agencies

Read all the Latest NewsTrending NewsCricket NewsBollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on FacebookTwitter and Instagram.

What's Your Reaction?

like

dislike

love

funny

angry

sad

wow