HC says camel slaughtering cannot be permitted in absence of dedicated abattoir

Taking note of the fact submitted by the State government that at present there are no special facilities available to slaughter camels, the Madras High Court on Thursday said that in such case, camel slaughtering cannot be permitted in the State.

“It is trite to say that slaughtering of camels cannot be the same as slaughtering of goats. There is thus no facility in Tamil Nadu for proper slaughtering of camels where it to be permitted,” the First Bench of Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan said.

The Bench made the observations on batch of PILs moved by Radha Rajan and others seeking to direct the authorities to ensure that no camel slaughtering takes place in Tamil Nadu.

When the PILs came up for hearing, the Central and State government submitted their responses to the series of quires on the legality of camel slaughtering and the Rules governing it.

Relying on section 28 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960 the Central government submitted that the Act does not support sacrifice of animals for any reason. It further stated that slaughtering of animals is allowed only for the purpose of food.

“Camel meat as food has been already prohibited under the Food Safety and Standards (Food products Standards and Food Additives) Regulation, 2011,” the authorities said.

Meanwhile, the State government relying on the same provision of the PCA Act claimed that camel slaughtering is permitted as a special case, coupled with the fact that religious sermon permits the slaughtering of camel.

Recording the submissions, the Bench said, “We may only add here is that it is admitted position that there are no camels available in Tamil Nadu and thus a comparison cannot be made of area where camels are found easily. In fact camels are imported into Tamil Nadu from Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra… Rajasthan is stated to have prohibited even the export of camels out of the State for the purposes of slaughtering by an enactment.”

Noting that the issue should be set-down for final hearing, but in the mean time in view of the stand of Central government and the provisions of the Central Act at present, we cannot have a situation where such camel slaughtering is permitted especially in the absence of any facility for it, the Bench posted the PILs for further hearing on October 17.