The Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday quashed a cow smuggling case registered against Haryana dairy farmer Pehlu Khan, who was allegedly lynched by a mob of cow vigilantes in 2017.
The relief covered Khan’s two sons and the owner of the pick-up truck in which they were transporting the cattle.
The court ruled that Khan had purchased the animals for dairy and not slaughter.
Justice Pankaj Bhandari at the High Court’s Jaipur Bench annulled the FIR report registered under the Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act, 1995, as well as the chargesheet filed against the four in the trial court.
The court held that there was no evidence to show that the cows were being transported for slaughter.
Driver Khan Mohammed and Pehlu Khan’s sons Irshad and Arif had challenged the FIR.
Their counsel Kapil Gupta contended that the criminal case was an abuse of the process of law, as the cows were milch cattle and the calves were one and two years old, refuting the presumption that they were being taken for slaughter.
Beaten up
Khan and his sons were transporting cows, after purchasing them in a cattle fair in Jaipur, to their hometown Nuh in Haryana on April 1, 2017, when they were waylaid near Behror on the Jaipur-Delhi National Highway by a mob of self-styled cow vigilantes and beaten up after being accused of smuggling the cattle. Khan succumbed to his injuries in a hospital two days later , leading to a nationwide outrage over the murder.
The chargesheet filed by the Rajasthan police in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate in Behror on May 24 this year came as an embarrassment for the Congress government, as it stated that though the offence of cow smuggling had been proved against Pehlu Khan as well, he had died on April 3, 2017, during his treatment in a hospital.
Khan’s sons, who were also beaten up in the incident, and Khan Mohammed secured bail in the case from the High Court in 2018. The chargesheet based its case on the absence of a valid permit from the competent authority for transporting the bovine animals outside the State. The police had seized six vehicles with 36 bovine animals during the incident.
Six acquitted
A sessions court in Alwar had acquitted all the six persons accused of murdering Khan on August 14 this year, while giving them the benefit of doubt. The State government has since filed an appeal in the High Court against the acquittal.
