Cattle Slaughter Rules: Second round of litigation in Supreme Court, notice issued to Centre

The Supreme Court yesterday issued notice to the Central government in a challenge to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 (Cattle Slaughter Rules)..This is the second round of litigation in the Supreme Court pertaining to the said Rules. The first round happened in 2017..The Cattle Slaughter Rules passed by the Centre in May 2017 looked to place certain restrictions on the sale of cattle in animal markets. Rule 22(b) requires a person bringing cattle to the market to submit a written declaration stating that the animal has not been brought to the market for slaughter. Further, Rule 22(d) requires an Animal Market Monitoring Committee to obtain a certificate from the buyer of an animal that it has been bought for agricultural purposes. Rule 22(e) prevents the purchaser from selling the animal for slaughter..The same was challenged in the Kerala, Bombay and Madras High Courts. While the Bombay and Kerala High Courts had issued notice to the Centre, the Madras High Court had stayed the Rules..Subsequently, in June 2017, the Rules were challenged in the Supreme Court as well. The Court issued notice to the Centre on June 15, 2017..When the matter came up for hearing on July 11, 2017, the Centre had told the Supreme Court that it had received a lot of representations from various stakeholders and that necessary changes will be introduced to the Rules after considering these representations..The Court had, therefore, disposed of the petitions after recording the following in its order:.“It is the Union of India’s submission that large number of representations have been received and the after appropriate consideration, necessary changes as may be introduced will be renotified by Centre. In the above view, these petitions need not be retained on board.”.The challenge has now been revived on the ground that the Central government has not made any changes to the Rules despite its assurance in 2017..The new petition filed by Buffalo Traders Welfare Association was heard by a Bench of Justices SA Bobde and BR Gavai. The Bench proceeded to issue notice to the Centre..Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde, along with advocates Rajnish Kumar Jha and Sanobar Ali Qureshi appeared for the petitioners..[Read Order]