The Karnataka government on Wednesday gave an undertaking to the High Court that no coercive action will be initiated for transporting cattle in breach of Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Ordinance, 2020 till the relevant rules are brought into force based on the draft rules notified recently.
Advocate-General Prabhuling K. Navadgi made submissions in this regard before a Division bench, comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum, during the hearing of PIL petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Ordinance promulgated recently.
Objections, suggestions
Also, the A-G assured the Bench that the government would inform the court before enforcing the rules after it were finalised considering the objections and suggestions being received for the draft rules, which were notified on January 18.
The government gave the assurance after the Bench during earlier hearing asked to clear apprehension about likely prosecution of farmers for transporting cattle within the State even for the exemption granted for bonafide agriculture and animal husbandry purpose as the government is yet to frame rules prescribing manner of such transportation.
Following these assurance, the Bench said that there was no need to pass any interim order at this stage while adjourning hearing till February 26.
The Bench also said that it may have examine a few provisions of the Ordinance.
Declining number
Earlier, the government, in its preliminary statement justifying the ordinance, has stated that the cattle population over the past eight years has substantially reduced from 95,16,484 in 2012 census (19th livestock census) to 84,69,004 in 2019 (20th live stock census), and that as per the 2019 census 2,38,296 cattle are being slaughtered every year and on an average it works out to 652 cattle per day.
The petitioners, Mohamed Arif Jameel, a social worker from Bengaluru and the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, have questioned the constitutional validity of the Ordinance on various grounds, including the contention that it would adversely affect the farmers as they would be forced to maintain unproductive cattle.