The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned the plea by the Buffalo Traders Welfare Association challenging the constitutional validity of the 2017 notifications allowing the authorities to seize the vehicles used in cattle transportation and to send the animals to gaushalas.
A three-judge bench led of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justices L. Nageswara Rao and Vineet Saran was hearing the matter through video conferencing. The Court has granted two weeks time to petitioner counsel to file rejoinder.
The petition filed by the Delhi-based cattle trader’s organization has claimed that such notifications travelled beyond the provisions of the parent law, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
The petitioner organization has challenged the provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Care and Maintenance of Case Property Animals) Rules, 2017 and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on May 23, 2017 for being unconstitutional and illegal.
The organization through its President Mohd Aqil Qureshi has submitted that the notification results in frequent lootings of the animals in violation of the rule of law. Certain groups are further emboldened to take the law into their own hands. Moreover, these incidents are acting as triggers for communal polarization of society, and, if not halted effectively and immediately, those will have disastrous consequences on the social fabric of the country.