Tamil Nadu’s traditional sport of bull-taming or jallikattu played during the festival of Pongal every January may yet bloody an unusual victim – the Animal Welfare Board of India.
The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has issued a showcause notice to its chairman RM Kharb for filing affidavits in court without the permission of the Centre. This is with regard to the stand the board took on the jallikattu issue in court recently. As unprecedented as the notice is, Animal Welfare Board of India members knew it was coming.
Red-faced Centre
The notice follows an embarrassment the Union government suffered in January when it attempted to bypass a 2014 Supreme Court ban on jallikattu by issuing a notification permitting the blood sport, only for it to be struck down by the apex court days before Pongal. By attempting to lift the ban, the government may have intended to notch up a few brownie points in the poll-bound state of Tamil Nadu. But the Animal Welfare Board of India, which had initiated the litigation leading to the ban on the sport in 2014 citing cruelty to animals, took the environment ministry to court, demanding the reinstatement of the ban.
A letter from the government, dated March 28, asks chairman Kharb to explain why the AWBI “has been filing writ petitions in various courts seeking directions/relief against the Government of India” when it had “specifically been directed to refrain from doing so”.
The letter said:
“…AWBI has been directed to get approval of Ministry before filing counter-affidavits… AWBI has no locus standi to file...
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