Himachal Pradesh HC directs Centre to consider enacting law to ban cow slaughter

The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to consider enacting a law to ban cow slaughter and also put a complete ban on sale, export and import of beef and beef-products in India within next three months.

In a 36-page judgement, a division bench consisting of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Sureshwar Thakur said secularism was one of the basic features of the Constitution of India and the people should not hurt the religious sentiments of each other. There should be cohesiveness in the society as strife tears apart the fibre of democracy and also generate mistrust for each other, it said.

"Though, no writ of mandamus can be issued to government of India to enact a legislation to prohibit slaughtering of cow/calf and putting restrictions on import and export of cow/calf, milch and other cattle or import and export of cow/calf, including sale of beef or beef products,. However, in view of Article 48, 48-A and 51-A(g) of the Constitution of India, the Union of India (GoI ) is directed to consider to enact the law prohibiting slaughtering of cow/calf, import or export of cow/calf, selling of beef or beef products, in its own wisdom at the national level, within a period of three months from today," the bench said.