High Court seeks reply from Uttar Pradesh government on policy for slaughter houses

The court was not convinced with the government counsel’s argument that the government has the power to impose reasonable restrictions on running of slaughter houses and it is for this reason that there was no slaughter house in chief minister’s district—Gorakhpur.

The Allahabad High Court on Thursday granted a week’s time to state government to apprise about its policy on slaughter houses in UP. It listed the matter for hearing on July 20.

The bench said it had power to provide relief for the benefit of people at large.

The court was not convinced with the government counsel’s argument that the government has the power to impose reasonable restrictions on running of slaughter houses and it is for this reason that there was no slaughter house in chief minister’s district—Gorakhpur.

The bench comprising chief justice DB Bhosale and justice MK Gupta did not agree with the government counsel who raised preliminary objections about the relief sought in the writ petition. The bench said it had power to provide relief for the benefit of people at large.

The bench also asked a question from the state as to whether the government wanted to ban eating of non-vegetarian food in UP and if not then why there was no slaughter house in several districts.

Additional advocate general Manish Goel requested the bench to give a week’s time to seek instructions from the state government on the issue.

The order was passed on a writ petition filed by Dilshad Ahmed and several others from Gorakhpur, who in their petition had alleged that there was no slaughter house in the district and the government was adamant on not giving assent for it. The petitioner’s plea was that since there was no slaughter house in Gorakhpur therefore they could not get food of their choice.