Cow slaughter ban violates minority rights, says JD(S)
Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda on Thursday led a delegation of Janata Dal (Secular) MPs and legislators to President Pratibha Patil, protesting against the ban on cow slaughter in Karnataka.
Submitting a memorandum to the President, the Janata Dal (Secular) delegation said Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill, 2010, passed by the State legislature, was not only anti-minority but also anti-Dalit and was an assault on the food habits of a considerable section of the population.
Is it justifiable?
“We request you to consider and determine whether it is reasonable and justifiable to give assent to this legislation in the larger interests of the state and the nation”.
The legislation has to be given assent to by the President and notified in the gazette to become a law.
The legislation seeks to replace the Act of 1964, which the Janata Dal (Secular) said stood the test of time and was accepted by all sections of the society.
The new legislation has imposed unnecessary and unwarranted prohibition on the exercise of a fundamental right of a particular section of the society to carry on its occupation, trade or business and such total restriction can never be regarded as reasonable since it has been imposed not in the interest of the general public but merely to appease a fringe and hardcore section of the majority community.
The non-utility animals were a burden on the farming community and maintaining them for the sole purpose of dung would be economically disastrous for the farmers.
The Supreme Court, the party legislators said, has consistently, in more than five judgments, upheld this reasoning and has said that those animals medically fit should be allowed to be slaughtered.
The present legislation, if it becomes a law, will not only render a large section of the population unemployed but also force the State’s farming community, which constitutes nearly 70 per cent of the population of the State, into further penury.
