The Delhi High Court on Thursday declined to entertain a petition to ban illegal slaughterhouses running in the National Capital Region, noting that it cannot go ahead with a “fishing and roving inquiry” as the petition had no details on the slaughterhouses.
A Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said, “You have not given one single example of any illegal slaughterhouse. You want us to do fishing and roving inquiry in the entire Delhi. Where is the list of slaughterhouses?”
The counsel for the petitioner Deepak Upadhayay argued that it was not possible to know the exact number of such illegal slaughterhouses as they are present in many local markets.
Mr. Upadhayay sought a ban on illegal slaughterhouses running in Delhi-NCR and to ensure that the sole mechanised slaughterhouse in the city, present at Ghazipur, is utilised to its optimum capacity and supplies healthy meat across the city.
To check epidemic spread
“The issue is of utmost importance since we are living in times of COVID pandemic and ensuring the quality of meat being supplied in the market is one of the important factors to check the spread of these types of epidemics,” the plea said.
“This petition arises in the context and background of flagrant violations of acts, rules and regulations governing the operations of slaughterhouses as well as various judgements and orders of the Supreme Court, which has banned the operation of illegal slaughtering and laid down stringent standards to be followed by slaughterhouses,” the plea added.
The petition said the Central Pollution Control Board has been piloting the efforts to get the problem of illegal slaughterhouses addressed through the cooperation of all state pollution control boards and other agencies. However, the problem of illegal slaughtering and slaughterhouses continue unabated in Delhi, therefore risking the lives of the residents.
