SC bins plea for urgent hearing to implement ban on cow slaughter

NEW DELHI: With cow slaughter banned by legislations in all states, except Kerala and some in the north-east, an advocate on Tuesday requested SC for an urgent hearing prior to Eid, which falls on May 28, for a direction to states to strictly enforce the laws.

Advocate Barun Kumar Sinha sought an urgent hearing on a PIL filed by Satish Kumar Aggarwal, an ex-vice president of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, but a bench headed by CJI Surya Kant sarcastically asked the counsel why he remembered the laws banning cow slaughter only a day before Eid and said there is no need for its urgent listing for hearing.

UP and Bihar were the first states to ban cow slaughter in 1955, and over the decades, as many as 20 states and UTs have prohibited slaughter of cows. At present, cow slaughter is permitted in Kerala and some northeastern states. Recently, Bengal govt reiterated complete ban on cow slaughter without certification under its 1950 Animal Slaughter Control Act.

The petitioner quoted a seven-judge bench SC judgment of 2005 in the Mirzapur Moti Kureshi Kassab Jamat case and said the court had "after an elaborate consideration of the constitutional, social, economic, cultural, and scientific aspects concerning cow protection, upheld the validity of legislative measures imposing a complete ban on cow slaughter".