The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the state government on a public interest litigation seeking ban on slaughter of live poultry in meat shops and seeking direction to send the poultry instead to slaughterhouses.
During a brief hearing, the petitioner through its advocate Nisarg Shah submitted that the poultry birds are being slaughtered at meat shops instead of slaughterhouses, when the bench headed by Chief Justice Aravind Kumar orally remarked, “birds need not be sent to slaughterhouse”.
The petitioner argued that provisions of the Food Safety and Standard (Licensing and Registration of Food Business) Regulations require that no animal is supposed to be slaughtered at a meat shop. CJ Kumar remarked, “Whether a hen can be considered as an animal… chicken is not meat… can it be extended to fish also?… you mean to say fish should be brought to the slaughterhouse?… it is too far-fetched to say that chicken should not be slaughtered in the mutton shop.”
The bench issued rule to the state government departments of urban development and urban housing, panchayat rural housing and rural development, animal husbandry, home, and commissioner of food and drugs administration, commissioner of municipal administration, Gujarat state slaughterhouse committee, and issued notice to the commissioners of the eight municipal corporations and the Union of India.
Pankaj Buch, the managing trustee of the Gujarat State Animal Welfare Board, and Vijay Dedhia, the trustee of the charitable trust Ahinsa Maha Sangh, filed the PIL. It pointed out that there are “grave violations of the provisions” under the regulations and “there is neither compliance nor implementation of the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals (Slaughterhouse) Rules, 2011”, by not regulating slaughter of poultry in slaughterhouses.
