The Supreme Court will continue hearing the plea filed by the Buffalo Traders Welfare Association (Retd) challenging the validity of 2017 notifications which allowed authorities to seize vehicles used in cattle transportation and send the animals to gaushalas or cow shelters.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian will hear the matter on January 4, 2021. In July 2019, the Court had issued notice in this matter. The petitioner association has claimed such notifications travelled beyond the provisions of the parent law, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
The petitioner, a Delhi-based organisation, has moved the Supreme Court through its president Mohd Aqil Qureshi challenging 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 petitioner said, “This results in frequent looting of the animals in violation of the rule of law. Certain groups got 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.”