New Delhi, September 29 : The SC, on Monday, refused to entertain a PIL which advocated for a ban on the practice of animal sacrifices in the name of religion.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy said that in villages, there is a belief that if animals are sacrificed, it might lead to rains, and courts ought not to “interfere” with such faith-based, century-old traditions.
The Bench while referring to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, which provides for such sacrifices for religious purposes, told Senior Counsel Raju Ramachandran that “the Act gives them the right to kill animals.”
“We don’t want to interfere. In villages there is a belief that if you sacrifice animals, they may get rains. These rights are there in the legislation. The legislature itself did not find anything wrong in animal sacrifices as it is a religious belief and faith,” the Bench was quoted as saying.
The Bench was dealing with a petition filed by the President of a Tamil Nadu-based NGO who had sought a directive declaring animal sacrifice, whether in the name of religion or otherwise, unconstitutional and violative of Articles 14 (Right to Equality) and 21 (Right to Life).
V. Radhakrishnan , who heads the Indian Makkal Mandram (Indian Citizens Forum) , wanted Section 28 of the 1960 Act declared unconstitutional as it condoned the practice of killing animals in the name of religion.
Ramachandran who appeared for the petitioner, while emphasizing on the fact that this petition was not regarding any particular community, narrated scenes of animal sacrifices where animals were slaughtered amidst “frenzied paranoia.”
“These sacrifices often take place in full public view of children and other animals and therefore, the same is a celebration of barbaric and ancient practices that have their foundation in superstition.”
“Slaughtering of an animal should be as per civilized norms, by trained butchers, with no unnecessary pain caused to the animal,” Ramachandran submitted.
He also told the Bench that the Himachal Pradesh High Court had banned animal sacrifice in the state and an appeal against that October 2014 order was pending in the Apex Court.
A High Court Division Bench, which invoked the doctrine of “parens patriae” that grants states the authority to protect the ones who are legally unable to act on their own, had said the “practice of animal and bird sacrifice is abhorrent and dastardly.”.
But the SC, unmoved, refused to consider Ramachandran’s plea. It, however, allowed him to withdraw the PIL with the liberty to raise his grievance when the appeal against the Himachal High Court’s 2014 order comes up for hearing.
This meant that the Apex Court had not altogether foreclosed the issue, but had left the matter to be decided by another bench that would hear the appeal against the High Court’s order.