New Delhi: The Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) has told the environment ministry that it was forced to approach the Supreme Court for a stay on the controversial Jallikattu “bull-taming” sport as the ministry had disregarded its opinion.
The board was responding to a show cause notice issued by the ministry after it sought the apex court’s intervention in the matter.
The environment ministry had issued the notice to AWBI on 28 March after the board opposed the ministry’s decision to allow Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu, where assembly elections are due in May (http://bit.ly/21RVf8P).
On 7 January, the environment ministry came out with a notification that allowed Jallikattu, as sport that is criticized by animal rights activists as cruel.
AWBI and animal rights organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) India and Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations moved the Supreme Court, which stayed the order.
They argued that the government notification was against a Supreme Court verdict of May 2014 banning Jallikattu. However, the move by AWBI didn’t go down well with the government, which issued a show-cause notice on 28 March.
AWBI is a statutory advisory body on animal welfare under the environment ministry.
“I wrote to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change on 31st December 2015 cautioning it against issuing a notification allowing the use of bulls in Jallikattu … We were constrained to take this step because despite the Supreme Court judgement, the ministry had not sought our opinion in the matter. However, we received no reply to our communication, and our opinion was disregarded,” said AWBI chairman R.M. Kharb in his reply to the show cause notice.
Urging the ministry to withdraw the showcause notice, Kharb noted that AWBI has been constituted to promote animal welfare in the country and protect animals from being subjected to unnecessary pain and suffering.
