Apex court to hear pleas to end ‘barbaric’ Jallikattu on Monday

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will on Monday hear urgent pleas for stopping Jallikattu. The pleas have been filed by the Animal Welfare Board, a statutory body under the Union environment ministry, and Compassion Unlimited Plus Action, an NGO.

Saying that Jallikattu was ‘barbaric’ and ‘cruel’ and that the state government did not have the power on such a legislation, the petitions challenged the constitutional validity of the amended Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, passed by the Tamil Nadu legislature recently to allow the sport and end the state-wide protests demanding staging of the traditional sport.

The Animal Welfare Board’s case was argued by senior advocate CA Sundaram and senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi represented the NGO. A bench led by Justice Dipak Misra said that it would hear the pleas on Monday.

Justice RF Nariman is the other judge on bench. It had earlier reserved judgement on the constitutional validity of the central law allowing the traditional sport in the run-up to crucial assembly polls in the state while restraining the law from taking effect in the interim.

But attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, the Modi government’s topmost law officer, urged the court not to defer the case for a week in order to let passions die down. The Centre ten put the onus on the state government, which issued an ordinance and followed it by bringing an amendment to the 1960 law.

In the last three years, the top court had not permitted the sport on the grounds that it involved extreme cruelty to animals and caused severe injuries and deaths to people. At least three persons died in different parts of TN during Jallikattu this year.