S. R. Das C. - (1.) THE following Judgment of the court was delivered by
(2.) THESE 12 petitions under Art. 32 of our ,Constitution raise the question of the constitutional validity of three several legislative enactments banning the slaughter of certain animals passed by the States of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh respectively. The controversy concerning the slaughter of cows has been raging in this country for a number of years and in the past it generated considerable illwill amongst the two major communities resulting even in riots and civil commotion in some places. We are, however, happy to note that the rival contentions of the parties to these proceedings have been urged before us without importing into them the heat of communal passion and in a rational and objective way, as a matter involving constitutional issues should be. Some of these petitions come from Bihar, some from U. P. and the rest from Madhya Pradesh, but as they raise common questions of law, it will be convenient to deal with and dispose of them together by one common judgment. Petitions Nos. 58 of 1956, 83 of 1956 and 84 of 1956 challenge the validity of the Bihar Preservation and Improvement of Animals Act, 1955 (Bihar 11 of 1956), hereinafter referred to as the Bihar Act. In Petition No. 58 of 1956 there are 5 petitioners, all of whom are Muslims belonging to the Quraishi community which is said to be numerous and an important section of Muslims of this country. The members of the community are said to be mainly engaged in the butchers' trade and its subsidiary undertakings such as the sale of hides, tannery, glue making, gut making and blooddehydrating, while some of them are also engaged in the sale and purchase of cattle and in their distribution over the various areas in the State of Bihar as well as in the other States of the Union of India. Petitioners Nos. 1 and 2 are butchers and meat vendors who, according to the petition, only slaughter cattle and not sheep or goats and are called ` Kasais ` in contradistinction to the `'Chicks ` who slaughter only sheep and goats. After slaughtering the cattle these petitioners sell the hides to tanners or bide merchants who are also members of their community and the intestines are sold to gut merchants. It is said that there are approximately 500 other Kasais in Patna alone apart from 2 lacs of other Kasais all over the State of Bihar. The correctness of these figures is not admitted by the respondent State but we do not doubt that the number of Kasais is considerable. Petitioner No. 3 is the owner of a tanning factory and Petitioner No. 4 is a gut merchant, while Petitioner No. 5 is the General secretary of Bihar State Jamiatul Quraish. In petition No. 83 there are 180 petitioners residing at different places in the State of Bihar who are all Muslims whose occupation is that of Kasais or cattle dealers or exporters of hides. In Petition No. 84 there are 170 petitioners all residents of Patna District who are also Muslims belonging to the Quraishi community and who carry on business as Kasais or dealers of cattle. All the petitioners in these three petitions are citizens of India. The Bill, which was eventually passed as the Bihar Act, was published in the Bihar Gazette on 20/04/1953. The scheme of the Bill, as originally drafted, was, it is said, to put a total ban only on the slaughter of cows and calves of cows below three years of age. The Bill was sent to a Select Committee and its scope appears to have been considerably enlarged, as will be seen presently. The Bill, as eventually passed by the Bihar Legislature, received the assent of the governor on December 8, 1.955, and was published in the Official Gazette on 11/01/1956. Section 1 of the Act came into force immediately upon such publication, but before any notification was issued under sub-s. (3) of s. 1 bringing the rest of the Act or any part of it into force in the State or any part of it, the present petitions were filed in this court challenging the consti- tutional validity of the Act. On applications for an interim order restraining the State of Bihar from issuing a notification under s. 1(3) of the Act bringing the Act into operation having been made in these petitions, the respondent State, by and through the learned Solicitor General of India, gave an undertaking not to issue such notification until the disposal of these petitions and, in the premises, no order was considered necessary to be made on those applications. Petition No. 103 of 1956 has been filed by two petitioners, who are both Muslims residing in Uttar Pradesh and carrying on business in that State, the first one as a hide merchant and the second as a butcher. Petitioners in Petition No. 129 are eight in number all of whom are Muslims residing and carrying on business in Uttar Pradesh either as gut merchants or cattle dealers, or Kasais or beef vendors or bone dealers or hide merchants or cultivators. All the petitioners in these two applications are citizens of India. By these two petitions the petitioners challenge the validity of the Uttar Pradesh Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1955 (LT. P. 1 of 1956), hereinafter referred to as the U. P. Act and pray for a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent State of Uttar Pradesh not to take any steps in pursuance of the U. P. Act or to interfere with the fundamental rights of the petitioners. Petitions Nos. 117 of 1956, 126 of 1956, 127 of 1956, 128 of 1956, 248 of 1956, 144 of 1956 and 145 of 1956 have been filed by 6, 95, 541, 58, 37, 976 and 395 petitioners respectively, all of whom are Muslims belonging to the Quraishi Community and are mainly engaged in the butchers' trade and its subsidiary undertaking such as the supply of hides, tannery, glue making, gutmaking and blood dehydrating. Most of them reside at different places which, at the dates of the filing of these petitions were parts of the State of Madhya Pradesh, but which or parts of which have, in the course of the recent re-organisation of the States, been transferred to and amalgamated with the State of Bombay. In consequence of such re-organisation of the States the State of Bombay has had to be substituted for the respondent State of Madhya Pradesh in the first five petitions and to be added in the sixth petition, for a part of the district in which the petitioners resided had been so transferred, while the State of Madhya Pradesh continues to be the respondent in the seventh petition.By these petitions the petitioners %II of whom are citizens Of India, challenge the validity of the C. P. and Berar Animal Preservation Act, 1949 (C. P. and Berar Lll of 1949), as subsequently amended.
(3.) IN order to appreciate the arguments advanced for and against the constitutional validity of the three impugned Acts it will be necessary to refer to the relevant provisions of the Constitution under or pursuant to which they have been made. Reference must first be made to Art. 48 which will be found in Ch. IV of the Constitution which enshrines what are called the directive principles of )State policy. Under Art. 37 these directive principles are not enforceable by any court of law but are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country and are to be applied by the State in making laws. Article 48 runs thus JUDGEMENT_731_AIR(SC)_1958Html1.htm The principal purpose of this article, according to learned counsel for the petitioners, is to direct the ,State to endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and the rest of the provisions of that article are ancillary to this principal purpose. They contend that the States are required to take steps for preserving and improving the breeds and for prohibiting the slaughter of the animals specified therein only with a view to implement that principal purpose, that is to say, only as parts of the general scheme for organising our agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines. Learned counsel for the petitioners refer to the marginal note to Art. 48 in support of their contention on this part of the case. They also rely on entry15 in listII of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. That entryreads: ` Preservation, protection and improvement of stock and prevention of animal diseases; veterinary training and practice.` There is no separate legislative head for prohibition of slaughter of animals and that fact, they claim, lends support to their conclusion that the prohibition of the slaughter of animals specified in the last part of Art. 48 is only ancillary to the principal directions for preservation, protection and improvement of stock, which is what is meant by organising agriculture and animal husbandry. Learned counsel for the respondents and Pandit Thakurdas Bhargava, who appears as amicus cutriae, on the other hand, maintain that the article contains three distinct and separate directions, each of which should, they urge, be implemented independently -and as a separate charge. It is not necessary for us, on this occasion, to express a final opinion on this question. Suffice it to say that there is no conflict between the different parts of this article and indeed the two last directives for preserving and improving the breeds and for the prohibition of slaughter of certain specified animals represent, as is indicated by the words ` in particular `, two special aspects of the preceding general directive for organising agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines. Whether the last two directives are ancillary to the first as contended for by learned counsel for the petitioners or are separate and independent items of directives as claimed by counsel on the other side, the directive for taking steps for preventing the slaughter of the animals is quite explicit and positive and contemplates a ban on the slaughter of the several categories of animals specified therein, namely, cows and calves and other cattle which answer the description of milch or draught cattle. The protection recommended by this part of the directive is, in our opinion, confined only to cows and calves and to those animals which are presently or potentially capable of yielding milk or of doing work as draught cattle but does not, from the very nature of the purpose for which it is obviously recommended, extend to cattle which at one time were milch or draught cattle but which have ceased to be such. It is pursuant to these directive principles and in exercise of the powers conferred by Arts. 245 and 246 of the Constitution read with entry15 in list II of the Seventh Schedule thereto that the, Legislatures of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya, Pradesh have respectively enacted the statutes which are challenged as unconstitutional. IN order properly, to appreciate the meaning and scope of the impugned Acts it has to be borne in mind that each one of those Acts is a law with respect to ` preservation, protection and improvement of stock `, and their constitutional validity will have to be judged in that context and against that background. Keeping this consideration in view, we proceed now to examine the relevant provisions of the three Acts. The title of the Bihar Act is ` An Act to provide for the preservation and improvement of certain animals in the State of Bihar.` Ss. (3) of s. 1 provides that that section shall come into force at once and the remaining provisions of the Act or any of them shall come into force on such date as the State government may, by notification, appoint and that different dates may be appointed for different provisions and for different areas. Section 2 is the definition section and the following definitions are to be noted: (a) ` Animal ` means(i)bull, bullock, cow, heifer, buffalo, calf, sheep, goat and-any other ruminating animal; (ii) poultry; and (iii) elephant, horse, camel, ass, mule, dog, swine and such other domesticated animals as may be specified in this behalf by the State government by notification in the Official Gazette; (b)............................................................ (c) ` bull ` means an uncastrated male above the age of three years belonging to the species of bovine cattle ; (d) ` bullock ` means a castrated male above the age of three years belonging to the species specified in clause (e)` calf ` means a female or a castrated or uncastrated male, of the age of three years and below belonging to the species specified in clause (c); (f)......................................................... (g) ` cow ` means a female above the age of three years belonging to the species specified in clause (e) ; Section 3, which is the principal section for the purposes of the Bihar Petitions, runs as follows: ` 3. Prohibition of slaughter of cow, calf, bull or bullock. Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force or in any usage or custom to the contrary, no person shall slaughter a cow, the calf of a cow, a bull or a bullock; Provided that the State government may, by general or special order and subject to such conditions as it may think fit to impose, allow the slaughter of any such animal for any medicinal or research purposes.` Section 4 provides for penalties for contravention or attempted contravention or abetment of contravention of any of the provisions of s. 3. The remaining provision; in the following three Ch. are not material for our present purpose. It will be noticed that the words ` bull `, ` bullock `, ` calf ` and ` cow` have been defined in cls. (c), (d), (e) and (g) of s. 2 as belonging to the species of bovine cattle. The expression ` species of bovine cattle ` is wide enough to in-elude and does in ordinary parlance include buffaloes,(male, or female adults or calves). Therefore, the corresponding categories of buffaloes, namely, buffalo bulls, buffalo bullocks, buffalo calves and she-buffaloes must be taken as included in the four defined categories of the species of bovine cattle and as such within the prohibition embodied in s. 3 of the Act. It is tobe, noted, however, that the allegations in the petitions and the affidavits in opposition proceed on the assumption that buffaloes (male or female adults or calves) were not within the protection of the section and, indeed, when the attention of learned counsel for the petitioners was drawn to the reference to the ` species of bovine cattle ` in each of the four definitions, they still made an attempt to support the latter view by suggesting that if buffaloes were to be included within the words defined in cls. (c), (d), (e) and (g), then there was no necessity for specifying it separately in the definition of ` animal ` in el. (a). This argument does not appear to us to be sound at all, for, then, on a parity of reasoning it was wholly unnecessary to specify heifer ` in the definition of ` animal `. If heifer is not to be included in the definition of cow ` because heifer ` is separately enumerated in 'the definition of animal ` then an astounding result will follow, namely, that the operative part of s. 3 will not prohibit the slaughter of ` heifer ` at all-a result which obviously could not possibly have been intended. The obvious reason for the enumeration of the different categories of animals in the definition of ` animal ` must have been to provide a word of wide import so that all those S. where the wider word ` animal ` is used may apply to the different kinds of animals included within that term. If the intention of the Bihar legislature was to exclude buffaloes (male or female adults or calves) from the protection of s. 3 then it must be said that it has failed to fulfil its intention. The U. P. Act is intituled ` An Act to prohibit the slaughter of COW and its progeny in Uttar Pradesh.` The preamble to the Act recites the expediency ` to prohibit and prevent the slaughter of cow and its progeny in Uttar Pradesh`. Although the 17. P. Act has been made under entry 15 in list II and presumably pursuant to the directives contained in Art. 48 nowhere in the Act is there any express reference whatever to the ` preservation, protection or improvement of stock.` Section 2 defines ` beef ` as meaning the flesh of cow but does not include the flesh of cow contained in sealed containers and imported as such in Uttar Pradesh. Clause (b) is very important, for it defines ` cow ` as including a bull, bullock, heifer, or calf. Section 3, which is the operative section runs thus: 3. Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force or any usage or custom to the contrary, no person shall slaughter or cause to be slaughtered or offer or cause to be offered for slaughter any cow in any place in Uttar Pradesh.` Two exceptions are made by s. 4 in respect of cows suffering from contagious or infectious disease or which is subjected to experimentation in the interest of medical or public health research. Section 5 prohibits the sale or transport of beef or beef products in any form except for medicinal purposes and subject to' the provisions of the exception therein mentioned. Section 6, on which counsel for the State relies, provides for the establishment, by the State government or by any local authority wherever so directed by the State government, of institutions as may be necessary for taking care of uneconomic cows. Under s. 7 the State government may levy such charges or fees, as may be prescribed for keeping uneconomic cows in the institutions. Section 8 provides for punishment for contravention of the provisions of ss. 3, 4 and 5. Section 9 makes the offences created by the Act cognisable and non-bailable. Section 10 gives power to the State government to make rules for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of the Act. It should be noted that the U. P. Act protects the ` cow `, which, according to the definition, includes only bulls, bullocks, heifer and calves. There is no reference to the species of bovine cattle and, therefore, the buffaloes (male or female adults or calves) are completely outside the protection of this Act. ;