SC express anguish on non-adherence of guidelines by abattoir

The Supreme Court today expressed its anguish that despite its orders, various guidelines and legal provisions are not followed by slaughter houses and many of them are functioning without any licence in various parts of the country.
"We notice that there is no periodical supervision or inspection of the various slaughter houses functioning in various parts of the country.
"Action Taken Reports would indicate that, in many States, slaughter houses are functioning without any licence and even the licenced slaughter houses are also not following the various provisions as well as the guidelines issued by the MoEF, which we have already referred to in our earlier orders," a bench comprising justices K S Radhakrishnan and Pinaki Chandra Ghosh said.

The bench noted that it had on August 23, 2012 highlighted the extreme necessity of constituting State Committees for the purpose of supervising and monitoring the implementation of provisions of concerned laws to prevent cruelty on animals but "few committees have filed their Action Taken Reports".
Underlining the need to strengthen state committees by involving experienced judicial officers, the bench asked the Chief Justice of all concerned High Courts to nominate the name of a retired District Judge for a period of two years as a Convener of the Committee so as to enable him to send the quarterly reports to the apex court, the first of which has to be sent within two months.

"We feel that the presence of an experienced Judicial Officer in the State Committees would give more life and light to the Committees..."
"The Convener, so appointed, would see that the Committees meet quite often and follow and implement the provisions of the Act as well as the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), which has been made a part of our order dated August 27, 2013," the bench said.