State of Gujarat v. Mirzapur Moti Kureshi Kassab Jamat

FACTS

The history of the impugned act dated back to 1954 when the Bombay Animal Preservation Act was enacted with a view to conserve the cattle wealth of the State of Bombay. The Act prevented the slaughter of cows and animals which were useful for milching, breeding or agricultural purposes. This Act was substituted by the Bombay Animal Preservation Act of 1954. The entire controversy began when a writ petition was filed in the Gujarat High Court challenging the validity of the Bombay Animal Preservation (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1994. Initially, the Act allowed the slaughter of bullocks only above the age of 16. However, the amendment ensured that bullocks, irrespective of their age, couldn’t be slaughtered. Such an amendment was challenged before the Hon'ble High Court.

JUDGEMENT AND ANALYSIS

• The Hon'ble court examined the question of the relationship between the Directive Principles (DPSP) and the Fundamental Rights (FR). The judicial view has veered round from irreconcilability to integration between the FRs and DPSPs and, in some of the more recent cases, to giving primacy to the Directive Principles.

• Article 48 makes it obligatory on the State to organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and, in particular, to take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.

• This Hon'ble court had previously emphasized in Quareshi v. State of Bihar that the directive in Article 48 contemplated protection only of cows and calves, and other animals, which are presently or potentially capable of yielding milk or doing work as draught cattle, but not of cattle which cease to be so in course of time.

• Overruling the earlier view (of Quareshi), the Supreme Court in State of Gujarat v. Mirzapur Moti Kureshi Kassab Jamat upheld a total ban on the slaughter of the progeny of a cow.

• The words "calves and other milch and draught cattle" were construed as a matter of description of a species (the entire class of such cattle, including bulls and bullocks) and not with regard to their present age or functional utility, only so as to distinguish such cattle from other cattle.

• The court observed that when total prohibition is imposed on the slaughter of cow and her progeny, the ban is total with regard to slaughter of one particular class of cattle and is not on the total activity of butchers as they are left free to slaughter cattle other than those specified in the impugned Act (thus making the restriction reasonable under Article 19(6)).

• It was held that a total prohibition of slaughter of cows and their progeny was intra vires of the Constitution.

{pg 1109, 1306, 1470 Indian Constitution by MP Jain} {pg 177, 344, Constitution of India by VN Shukla}