Five reasons why the Supreme Court verdict may go against Jallikattu
Here are five reasons why the Supreme Court, which banned Jallikattu in 2014 on grounds of cruelty to animals, may find it hard to rule in favour of the traditional sport.
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea to pass its verdict on the popular bull-taming sport Jallikattu before the harvest festival of Pongal on Saturday, sparking widespread protests across Tamil Nadu. Here are five reasons why the Supreme Court, which banned Jallikattu in 2014 on grounds of cruelty to animals, may find it hard to rule in favour of the traditional sport.
Youngsters taking part in a protest demanding revocation of ban on Jallikattu in Madurai on Monday. (PTI)
• Allowing events like Jallikattu or the bull race in Maharashtra violates provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act-1960, which prohibits the use of animals for entertainment or display.
• In 2014, the Supreme Court struck down the Tamil Nadu Regulation of Jallikattu Act of 2009 – a state law that permitted the event – stating that it violates the national law. “Even bulls have rights against torture,” the court had said.
• The court upheld the 2011 order of the environment ministry, declaring sports involving animals such as Jallikattu illegal. The NDA government’s bid to rewrite the order through the introduction of inspections by designated officials and ensuring proper hygiene was struck down by the apex court in 2015.
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• The court order was based on a report by the Animal Welfare Board of India, which found that bulls were bitten, stabbed and pulled by the tail during the taming sport. “Being dumb and helpless, they suffer in silence. We notice that the situation is the same in Maharashtra too,” the court said.
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• The court order was based on a report by the Animal Welfare Board of India, which found that bulls were bitten, stabbed and pulled by the tail during the taming sport. “Being dumb and helpless, they suffer in silence. We notice that the situation is the same in Maharashtra too,” the court said.
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• After the apex court passed its order, several high courts also banned animal sacrifice and sports across the states. Allowing Jallikattu would have spurred other courts – from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh to Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Assam and Maharashtra – to allow cruelty to animals in the name of tradition.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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