PRAFULLA C.PANT, J. - (1.) HEARD .
(2.) BY means of this petition moved under section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (For short Cr.P.C.), the petitioners have sought quashing of the proceedings of criminal case no. 2452 of 2011, State vs. Munne and others, relating to offence punishable under section 5/11 of Uttarakhand Protection of Cow Progeny Act, 2007, Police Station Lalkuan, pending in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Haldwani, District Nainital. 2. Brief facts of the case are that police personnel caught petitioners taking out skin of dead cow. They were cutting skin of the dead animal. Learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that what is provided under section 5 read with section 11 is that no person shall keep in possession or cause to keep in possession or sell or transport or offer for sale or transport or cause to be sold or transported, beef or beef products in any form. Assuming that what the police personnel have stated in the recovery memo, and in the FIR, is true even then it is neither a case for sale nor transport or possession of beef. It is further pleaded before this Court that neither any member of cow progeny was being transported to slaughter house in contravention of the law, nor any cruelty was being committed against the animal. It is further pleaded that a license is required for taking out skins of dead animals from Nagar Palika or Zila Panchayat but for that reason provisions of Uttarakhand Protection of Cow Progeny Act, 2007, do not get attracted.
(3.) HAVING heard learned counsel for the parties, and after going through the papers on record, this Court finds that even if whatever prosecution has stated is taken to be true, the ingredients of the offences punishable under section3 or 4 or 5 read with section 11 of the Uttarakhand Protection of Cow Progeny Act, 2007, are not made out. It is neither a case of taking any cow or its progeny to slaughter house, nor a case of selling or transporting beef of cow. Merely cutting skin of a dead animal lying in a field by itself does not attract provisions of Uttarakhand Protection of Cow Progeny Act, 2007.;