New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of three state laws – Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Maharashtra – that allow “Jallikattu”, a popular bull-taming sport practised for centuries.
A Constitution bench, led by Justice K.M. Joseph, analysed Tamil Nadu’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 2017 to hold that there was no flaw in it.
The court rejected the argument made by petitioners that the Act violated provisions of the Constitution and was contrary to the top court’s 2014 judgement, which had banned “Jallikattu”.
Both the Act and the rules framed under it are not “directly contrary to the ratio of the judgement (2014)”, the bench said. Rather, together they overturned the defects pointed out in that judgement in the then law – which regulated “Jallikattu” in the state — the bench added.
The order came on a batch of petitions challenging Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra’s laws allowing the bull-taming sport and bullock cart races. “Jallikattu”, also known as “eruthazhuvuthal”, is played in Tamil Nadu as part of the Pongal harvest festival. A bull is released into an open space and the winner is the one who can take control of the bull by grabbing the large hump on its back.
Among the petitioners were Animal Welfare Board and PETA, who assailed the state laws on the ground that they were in the face of a 2014 Supreme Court judgement that banned “Jallikattu”.
The court had then found that the Tamil Nadu Regulation of the Jallikattu Act, 2009 – which allowed the sport in the southern state – was repugnant to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 2009.
On Thursday, the Constitution bench opined that in the 2014 judgement, the sport attracted restrictions of the PCA because of the manner in which it was then practised.
But the amended 2017 Act sought to substantially minimise pain and suffering of the bulls involved in the sport, the apex court observed. “As a bovine sport has to be isolated in the manner in which they were earlier practised,” the court said.
The court referred to the material placed before it and said the bovine sport has existed in Tamil Nadu for at least the last few centuries.
The bench, however, declined to undertake an exercise to determine whether the sport was an integral part of Tamil culture. This, it said, requires religious, cultural and social analysis in greater detail, which, in the court’s opinion, cannot be done by the judiciary.
“The question whether the Act (2017) is to preserve the cultural heritage of a particular state is a debatable issue which has to be concluded in the house of people. This ought not to be part of judicial enquiry and particularly having regard to the activity in question and materials in the form of texts cited before us by both, this question cannot be conclusively determined in the writ proceedings,” the bench said.
Since the legislature has taken a view that “Jallikattu” has been part of Tamil Nadu’s cultural heritage, the court said it would not “disrupt” it. In the same breath, the court added it did not subscribe to the view reflected in the 2014 judgement that “Jallikattu” was not a part of Tamil Nadu’s cultural heritage.
“We do not think there was sufficient material for the court to come to this conclusion,” the bench said. It added that if any cultural event or tradition offends the law, penal consequences would follow.
The court, therefore, directed the district magistrate or the competent authority of a district where the sport is held to ensure that the law on “Jallikattu” was strictly followed.
“Jallikattu” got drawn into a controversy when the Madras High Court in 2007 stayed a single-judge’s order to ban the practice, and allowed the sport. This stay order was questioned before the Supreme Court, which initially put it on hold, but in 2008 lifted the ban with a caveat that the bulls should not be subjected to pain during the sport.
Within a year, the Tamil Nadu government enacted a law, which too got embroiled in litigation. The Tamil Nadu Regulation of the Jallikattu Act, 2009 was challenged in the Supreme Court by PETA. While the matter was pending in the top court, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) issued a notification under the PCA Act, whereby bulls were declared as non-performing animals.
Three years later, the apex court also delivered its verdict to ban “Jallikattu”. A review against the final judgement was rejected in 2016. In a turnaround of events, the MoEF, in the same year, modified its 2011 notification and re-categorised bulls as performing animals for the purpose of “Jallikattu and others similar sports.
This notification was challenged before the Supreme Court by various animal-rights activists and organisations, claiming the notification was contrary to the 2014 apex court judgement.
Though the SC stayed the implementation of this notification, the Tamil Nadu government, in the backdrop of huge protests, enacted the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 2017, which allowed “Jallikattu” in the state under the PCA Act. Rules were also framed under this new state law. In view of this development, the MoEF withdrew its 2016 notification on bulls.
Petitions were filed before the Supreme Court to put a stay on the Tamil Nadu law, which the court refused. Subsequently, in 2018, a two-judge bench of the then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justice R. F. Nariman referred the matter to a Constitution Bench, after it was felt that the set of petitions involved substantial questions relating to the interpretation of the Constitution.
Five questions were framed by the bench, including whether the law was in direct contravention with the 2014 SC ruling.
Appearing for the petitioners, senior advocate Siddharth Luthra criticised the law for being against the objective of the parent act, which was to prevent cruelty to animals. “They are contradictory and destructive of the main objects of the principal central act,” he submitted.
When asked if animals have liberty within the spheres of Article 21, Luthra said it was inherent since the Constitution recognises that cruelty cannot be perpetuated to animals.
That is why such practices, irrespective of whether they are alleviated as cultural rights, cannot be allowed under the Constitution, he had said. Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for PETA, told the bench that with the 2014 SC verdict, issues of cruelty in “Jallikattu” and similar rural sports had already been decided. According to him, the Constitutional protection and principles laid down in the 2014 pronouncement was enough to hold the law invalid.
The Tamil Nadu government argued against the 2014 judgement to defend its legislation. That verdict, it said, presumed that because there was a duty to ensure the well-being of animals, there was a right of the animals to demand it.
However, not every duty results in a concomitant right as a matter of law, its lawyer, senior advocate Kapil Sibal said. There could, at best, be moral norms for humans to not cause unnecessary pain or suffering.