Crackdown on illegal meat must not hit right to life: HC

LUCKNOW: Choice of food and trade in foodstuff were part of right to life, the Allahabad high court has said, giving the UP government 10 days for a plan so that its crackdown on illegal abattoirs and meat shops didn’t deprive people of their livelihood or food.

The court’s Lucknow bench also said various food habits had flourished in UP and these were an essential part of the state’s secular culture. It was responding to a petition of a trader who sought directions for the government to renew his meat shop licence .

Smuggling of cows and consumption of its meat has been in the spotlight since the new UP government cracked down on slaughterhouses and smugglers.

“To provide an immediate check on unlawful activity should be simultaneous with facilitating the carrying of lawful activity, particularly that relating to food, food habits and vending thereof that is undisputedly connected with the right to life and livelihood,” justices Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Sanjai Harkauli said on April 3.

“Food that is conducive to health cannot be treated as a wrong choice” and it was the duty of the state to ensure supply of healthy foodstuff, a copy of the order available on the HC website said.

In response, the state government told the court here was no plan to ban consumption of meat or to close all slaughterhouses. The intention was to ban illegal slaughter houses and regulate their functioning.