The Supreme Court stayed a Madras High Court order that directed the Tamil Nadu government to make sure that no cows or calves are slaughtered anywhere in the state.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta put the High Court’s judgment on hold and issued notice on the Tamil Nadu government’s appeal, which challenged the May 24 High Court order.
The plea, which was filed on June 9 by state’s counsel Jayasree Narasimhan, said that the order by the High Court imposing a blanket ban on cow slaughter even at the designated slaughterhouses is not suitable in law. The state highlighted that the original plea only put questions of whether cows and calves could be sacrificed in places not designated as slaughterhouses on Eid al-Adha. However, a division bench went ahead and put an absolute blanket ban.
Furthermore, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government said that the High Court order goes against the Tamil Nadu Animal Preservation Act, 1958. It highlighted that the law permits cows older than 10 years to be slaughtered if a competent authority certifies that they are no longer fit for work or breeding.
Alongside this, other applicable statutes such as the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960; the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Slaughter House) Rules, 2001; the Tamil Nadu Urban Local Bodies Act, 1998; and the Tamil Nadu Urban Local Bodies Rules, 2023, highlight the condition in which animals may be slaughtered, but they do not impose a total prohibition, Live Law reported.
Meanwhile, the state also objected to the High Court for relying upon Government Order No. 1715 without its validity or applicability ever being issued before the court. The government argued that an executive order cannot replace, change, or override the laws made by the legislature regarding animal slaughter in Tamil Nadu.
