The Madras High Court, in an order on Wednesday, directed Tamil Nadu's Chief Secretary to ensure that no cow or calf is slaughtered on the eve of Bakrid or on the festival day today. A division bench of Justice GR Swaminathan and Justice V Lakshminarayan passed the order in a plea seeking direction to the state authorities, including the Director General of Police, to take steps to prevent the slaughter of cows in public places.

"We allow this writ petition with a direction to the State of Tamil Nadu to ensure that no cow or calf is slaughtered on the eve of Bakrid or on any other day. The authorities, particularly the chief secretary to the government and the additional director general of police (law and order), are obliged to issue suitable instructions to all the officials concerned to ensure that there is no breach of this order," the court said.

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The petitioner Surya, State General Secretary of the Indu Makkal Katchi, submitted that he had come to know that the cows are being slaughtered illegally in public places and had sent a representation on May 18 to the respondents to immediately take steps to prevent cow slaughter in public places and to rescue the cows.

However, the petitioner claimed that the respondents did consider the representation.

The court considered the counter-affidavit filed by the authorities, conceding that temporary sheds had been constructed for the slaughter of cows in non-public areas without causing any obstruction to traffic or offending the religious sentiments of persons belonging to other communities.

The court observed that as per Article 48 of the Constitution, the State is bound to take steps to prohibit the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.

The court also pointed out that the cow was considered a revered animal during the constituent assembly debates, and even during the rule of Muslim rulers, cow slaughter had been banned.

"During the debates in the Constituent Assembly, it was pointed out that cow is a revered animal and that it has been associated with our civilisation from the time of Lord Krishna. During the rule of many Muslim kings cow slaughter was abolished. Cow protection was an issue so dear to Mahatma Gandhiji," the court remarked.

Relying upon various judicial pronouncements related to the issue, the court observed that the slaughter of cows was not an essential religious practice for Muslims on Bakrid and the sacrifice of a cow on that day is not an obligatory overt act for a Musalman to exhibit his religious beliefs and ideas. "The Hon'ble Supreme Court observed that many Muslims do not sacrifice cows on Bakr'Id day. Sacrifice of a cow on that day is not an obligatory overt act for a Musalman to exhibit his religious belief and idea (Mohammed Hanif Quareshi -vs- State of Bihar AIR 1958 SC 731). Sacrifice of any animal by the Muslims for the religious purpose on Bakr'd does not include slaughtering of cows as the only way of carrying out that sacrifice. Slaughtering of cows on this occasion is neither essential to nor necessarily required as part of the religious ceremony (State of West Bengal -vs- Ashutosh Lahiri (1995) 1 SCC 189)," the court observed.

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