High Court Refuses To Entertain Plea Alleging Operation Of Illegal Slaughterhouses In Delhi

The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to entertain a petition seeking to ban the illegal slaughterhouses running in the Delhi NCR region.

A division bench comprising of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad was of the view that the petitioner failed to give appropriate details about the said illegal slaughterhouses.

"You have not given one single example of any illegal slaughterhouse. You want us to do fishing and roving enquiry in entire Delhi. Where is the list of slaughterhouses?," the Chief Justice remarked orally.

The counsel appearing for the petitioner however said that it was not possible to set out details of individual slaughterhouses present in local markets.

The counsel thereafter sought liberty from the Court to withdraw the petition after some arguments and to file a fresh plea including necessary details.

The plea was thus dismissed as withdrawn.

The plea, moved through Advocates Gautam Jha, Pankaj Kumar and Sweta Jha, also sought directions to ensure that the sole mechanised and modern slaughter house at city's Ghazipur area is utilised to its optimum capacity and supplies healthy meat for domestic consumption of people.

The plea argued that the issue is of utmost importance in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and that the quality of meat being supplied in the market is one of the important factors to check the spread of such epidemics.

"The Central Pollution Control Board has been piloting the efforts to get the problem of illegal slaughter houses address through the cooperation of all State Pollution Control Boards and other agencies having a role in this issue. However, the problem of illegal slaughtering and slaughter house continue unabated in Delhi, thereby risking the life of the residents and exposing the entire population to the threat of any future pandemic arising from meat being supplied, which may not be fit for human consumption," the plea adds.

The plea averred that in Delhi, there is no mechanism to check the source of the livestock which is supplied to the illegal slaughter houses, because of which, the health condition of these livestock is not known, consequently leading to illegal trafficking and smuggling of live stocks.

"It cannot be said with certainty whether the meat being processed in these illegal slaughterhouses are fit for human consumption. On the contrary, if the meat is slaughtered and processed in a licensed and modern slaughter house like the one in Ghazipur, then they have to meet a very stringent standards set under various law, Rules, Regulations, directions of Central Pollution Control Board and the directions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court Of India and the High Court," the plea argued.

Case Title: Deepak Upadhyay v. State of NCT of Delhi & Ors. 

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Del) 619