SC disposes of plea against Kambala Ordinance

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi Mar 13 2018 DH News: The Supreme Court on Monday allowed an NGO to withdraw its plea for staying Karnataka’s Ordinance allowing traditional buffalo race ’Kambala’ after the state government submitted it has become infructous with enactment of a fresh law.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud took the submission made by Additional Advocate General Devdutt Kamat into the record and disposed of the matter.

The court, however, granted liberty to the petitioner Peta India to challenge the law, if so advised.

The state government claimed the plea has become infructous as the NGO had challenged validity of the Ordinance that has already lapsed. ’The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Karnataka Amendment) Bill, 2017’, passed by the Karnataka Assembly, has already been granted assent by the President last month. The new law has been notified as well.

In its plea, the NGO claimed the Ordinance has removed the very basis of its 2014 judgement by the apex court wherein ’Jallikattu’ of Tamil Nadu, bullock-cart race of Maharashtra were declared illegal for violating the fundamental rights of animals.

The state, for its part, maintained that ’Kambala’, conducted in water and slushy field in coastal districts, helped in regulating the metabolic activity including heat and temperature in the body of the buffalo. There was no cruelty to animals, it claimed.

On February 2, the Supreme Court had referred to the five-judge Constitution bench to decide if the Tamil Nadu’s 2017 law allowing Jallikattu can be granted protection under the fundamental right of a group of citizens to conserve their culture.