Breaking: Kerala High Court refuses to stay Centre’s Rules banning sale of cattle for slaughter

The Kerala High Court today refused to stay the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 (Rules), which prohibits the sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets..The order was passed by Justice PB Suresh Kumar in a batch of petitions challenging Rule 22 of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017. Advocate Haris Beeran appeared for the petitioner. While one of the petitioners is a cattle trader, another is a Member of Legislative Assembly of Kerala..The petitions have been listed for expeditious disposal on June 28..One of the main arguments of the petitioners was that the Rules are a colourable exercise of the “power of delegated legislation”..“It directly encroaches on the legislative power of the State Legislatures under Entry 15 of List II of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India. The legislative entry namely entry 17 of List III cannot be a source of power to issue Rules”.Another major contention of the petitioner was that it affects the petitioner’s right to trade under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India..“The petitioner’s business has already affected to a huge extent since the supply of buffalos for the purpose of slaughter is prohibited under the impugned Rules. The petitioner will have to close down his business, if the said impugned order is permitted to stay in the statute book.”.Further, the petitioners had also contended that impugned Rules are not in consonance with the object of the parent statute, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960, and is ultra vires the said Act. This argument was founded on the fact that the Act exempts killing of animals for the purpose of food, from its purview..“The prohibition imposed in Rule 22 of the Rules for selling cattle for slaughter is clearly ultra vires the Act. In fact, the Act saves and permits killing of animals for the purposes of food. It is very clear from the proviso to Section 11 of the Act, that any act done for destruction of any animal for food of man is outside its purview. Hence, Ext P.3 is ultra vires the Act, a mala fide exercise of power and wholly untenable in law and thus liable to be quashed. The impugned Rules have no nexus whatsoever with the objects sought to be achieved by the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960..”.The Central government’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had notified new Rules, which ban the sale of cattle for the purpose of slaughter in animal markets..Rule 22 of the Rules framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, place certain specific restrictions on the sale of cattle in these 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 Rules also have an exhaustive definition of ‘animal market’:.““animal market” means a market place or sale-yard or any other premises or place to which animals are brought from other places and exposed for sale or auction and includes any lairage adjoining a market or a slaughterhouse and used in connection with it and any place adjoining a market used as a parking area by visitors to the market for parking vehicles and includes animal fair and cattle pound where animals are offered or displayed for sale or auction.”.The Rules, which could allegedly impact the beef market, had triggered wide spread protests in states like Kerala, where there are no restrictions on slaughter of cattle..Earlier, the Madras High Court had stayed the notification in a petition filed by a lawyer..Read the order and petition below.