In a significant development, the Nainital High Court on Friday lifted the ban on animal sacrifice during the Nanda Devi Festival, a major annual religious event in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand.
The court, however, directed that the practice must not take place in the open but strictly within closed premises.
Delivering its judgment on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the festival organisers, the High Court allowed animal sacrifice in order to uphold the religious traditions and sentiments of the people.
However, the court granted permission subject to the condition that the sacrifices be carried out inside a slaughterhouse to be set up by the local administration in Almora during the festival.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice G. Narendra and Justice Subhash Upadhyay, while hearing the PIL, ruled that ritualistic animal sacrifice would not be permitted in public view.
The court also directed the respective municipal corporations to identify a suitable location for the slaughterhouse.
Further, the High Court instructed the State Pollution Control Board to issue a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for the sacrifices and ordered that a food inspector be deployed to ensure compliance with its directives during the ritual.
The petition to revoke the 2015 ban on traditional goat sacrifice during the Nanda Devi Festival—celebrated mainly in Nainital and Almora—was filed by Nainital resident Pawan Jatav and others.
The petitioners argued that animal sacrifice had been an age-old tradition and that the ban imposed in 2015 had hurt the religious sentiments of devotees.
They also requested that arrangements be made for sacrifices to take place away from public view, preferably in a designated slaughterhouse.
“This long-standing demand of the petitioners has been granted by the High Court, subject to restrictions. The court has directed that goats brought for puja and other rituals must be taken to the temporary slaughterhouse set up by the municipal body,” said Pradeep Kukreti, counsel for the petitioners.