An animal rights activist from Bangalore has filed an application in the Madras High Court Bench here in support of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulations of Livestock Markets) Rules of 2017 which banned sale of bulls, bullocks, cows, buffaloes, steers, heifers, calves and camels for slaughter in places defined as ‘animal markets’ under the rules.
The activist, Joshine Antony (34), claimed that she was a honorary animal welfare officer of Animal Welfare Board of India and worked for a non governmental organisation named Gau Gyan Foundation. She urged the court to permit her to be included as one of the respondents to a public interest litigation petition pending in the court against the 2017 rules.
According to Ms. Antony, the Centre had framed the rules only in compliance of a direction issued to it by the Supreme Court on July 12, 2016 in a 2014 writ petition filed by another animal rights activist Gauri Maulekhi.
That case was filed with respect to transportation of chickens, goats and buffaloes from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Uttarakhand across the Indo-Nepal border for mass sacrifice during Gadhimai festival.
While disposing of the case, the apex court had directed the Centre to implement certain suggestions made by a committee and one of those suggestions was to frame statutory rules to regulate cattle markets in order to ensure that healthy cattle were sold only for legally authorised purposes.
It was pursuant to the directive that the Centre had framed the rules by exercising the powers conferred on it under Section 38(1) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960, the impleading petitioner said and claimed that the rules were perfectly in consonance with the parent Act and therefore there was no need for any kind of judicial interference in this.
The impleading petition as well as the PIL petitions filed by Madurai based social activist S. Selva Gomathi and another were wrongly listed before a Division Bench of Justices K.K. Sasidharan and G.R. Swaminathan on Wednesday.
The judges directed the High Court Registry to list it before the other Division Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Sathish Kumar on Thursday.
