{"id":121019,"date":"2021-07-24T19:49:58","date_gmt":"2021-07-24T14:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=121019"},"modified":"2021-07-26T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T05:40:09","slug":"meat-ban-is-a-matter-of-fundamental-rights-not-of-majority-vs-minority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/meat-ban-is-a-matter-of-fundamental-rights-not-of-majority-vs-minority\/","title":{"rendered":"Meat ban is a matter of fundamental rights, not of majority vs minority"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/hc-meat-ban-matter-of-fundamental-rights-not-of-majority-vs-minority\/articleshow\/84695675.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Times of India<\/a> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>What is the news?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Uttarakhand HC observed that the matter of banning meat concerns the fundamental rights of citizens. India is a country where 70% of the population eats non-vegetarian food, and hence meat ban is not a majority versus minority issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Background<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In March, Uttarakhand had declared all areas in Haridwar \u201cslaughterhouse-free\u201d and cancelled no objection certificates issued to slaughterhouses.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Section 237A was inserted into the UP Municipalities Act.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It enables the government to declare an area under a municipal corporation, council or nagar panchayat a \u201cslaughter-free\u201d zone.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This order was challenged in the Uttarakhand High Court on the following grounds:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A ban on slaughterhouses in Haridwar discriminated against minorities, as many areas in the district had a substantial Muslim population.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A blanket ban on the meat of any type is unconstitutional.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>What did the court say?<\/b><\/h5>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The issue is <\/span><b>not a minority versus majority debate, rather one concerning fundamental rights of citizens<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bench cited surveys on the food habits of Indians from 2018 and 2019.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It found out that 72.6% of the population in Uttarakhand and 70% population in India is non-vegetarian. This busts the myth that the majority of the population is vegetarian.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A ban like the one in Haridwar calls into question <\/span><b>the extent to which the state can determine a citizen\u2019s choices<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The issue is whether a citizen has the right to decide his own diet, or will that be decided by the state.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The court had also said that a civilization is judged<\/span><b> only by how it treats its minorities. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDemocracy does not only mean rule by the majority but, most importantly, democracy means the protection of the minority.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h5><b>Way Ahead<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The court has now asked the petitioners to amend their pleas in a week as none of them pleaded that such a ban violates<\/span><b> the right to privacy <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of a citizen.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As per the court, the petitions were not drafted with \u201c<b>whole-heartedness\u201d that is required in challenging \u201cseminal constitutional issues\u201d.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Times of India \u00a0 What is the news? The Uttarakhand HC observed that the matter of banning meat concerns the fundamental rights of citizens. India is a country where 70% of the population eats non-vegetarian food, and hence meat ban is not a majority versus minority issue. Background: In March, Uttarakhand had declared all&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/meat-ban-is-a-matter-of-fundamental-rights-not-of-majority-vs-minority\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Meat ban is a matter of fundamental rights, not of majority vs minority<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1760,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-polity-and-nation","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700801914,"cached_date":1704202415},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}