The Tamil Nadu government has moved the Supreme Court challenging a Madras High Court order that imposed a blanket ban on slaughtering cows and calves in the state, Live Law reported on Wednesday.
In its petition, the state argued that the May High Court exceeded the scope of the public interest litigation before it and issued a blanket prohibition that was contrary to the statutory framework governing animal slaughter in Tamil Nadu, Bar and Bench reported.
The order in question was passed on May 27 by a bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayan on a petition filed by the general secretary of the Hindutva organisation, Hindu Makkal Katchi.
The petition had sought directions to ensure that cows were slaughtered only at designated places during Bakrid in Coimbatore and not in public places as per existing laws and directions, Bar and Bench reported.
The state said the authorities had informed the High Court that measures had already been taken to ensure that no slaughter took place in public places.
According to its counter affidavit, the police had stepped up surveillance, identified designated slaughterhouses, deployed officials for inspections and taken steps to ensure that any slaughter was confined to authorised facilities, Bar and Bench reported.
However, after initially observing that slaughter should take place only in designated slaughterhouses, the High Court…
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