New Delhi: The Allahabad high court has quashed the detention of three persons under the National Security Act (NSA) in a cow slaughter case, observing that slaughtering a cow inside one’s house may involve a law and order issue but not public order, according to the Indian Express.The court was hearing the habeas corpus petitions filed by the families of Irfan, Rahmatullah and Parvez who were arrested for alleged cow slaughter in the state’s Sitapur district in July last year. The order, dated August 5, says that the “act of slaughtering a cow in the secrecy of one’s own house in the wee hours probably because of poverty or lack of employment or hunger, would perhaps only involve a law and order issue and could not be said to stand on the same footing as a situation where a number of cattle have been slaughtered outside in public view and the public transport of their flesh or an incident where an aggressive attack is made by the slaughterers against the complaining public, which may involve infractions of public order.”The draconian law gives the state powers to arrest someone without a formal charge or trial.According to the Indian Express, the court ordered the release of the three persons and said there was “no material for reaching the conclusion that the petitioners/detenues would repeat the activity in future”.The trio were booked under different sections of the UP Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1955 and Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013. The court was informed that another FIR had been registered under the UP Gangsters Act and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986.The newspaper reported that the court document says that the Talgaon police had received information that Irfan, Rahmatullah and Parvez and two butchers from Biswan village were cutting beef to sell it and raided the house of the petitioners. Parvez and Irfan were arrested on the spot along with beef.The high court took note of the fact that when news of the sale spread in the area, “villagers of Hindu community gathered… and communal amity was disturbed” and that the police had managed to restore public order after great efforts.According to the Indian Express, the counsel for the accused argued that since the petitioners were in the custody of the police authorities for a substantive offence and an FIR was also registered under the Gangsters Act, “there was no need to direct their preventive detention merely on the basis of a solitary incident of cutting beef… in the secrecy of their home”.However, the additional government advocate submitted that even the “subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority” that the actions of the petitioners could have disturbed “the tempo of life” was sufficient to issue preventive detention order.The high court concluded that the three habeas corpus petitions “succeed and are allowed” and quashed the detention order. “The detenues/petitioners shall be released forthwith unless wanted in connection with some other criminal case,” the court said, according to the Indian Express.A recent investigation by the Indian Express had found that between January 2018 and December 2020, the Allahabad high court had quashed 94 of the 120 NSA cases, revealing the “frivolous grounds” on which the draconian law is being invoked in the state. The HC had ordered the release of all the detainees in the 94 cases where the NSA order was quashed.Of these 120 cases, as many as 41 cases were related to cow slaughter and all the accused in these cases were from the Muslim community. The Allahabad high court quashed the NSA order in 30 cow slaughter cases and ordered the release of petitioners.The report also said that a quick survey of the NSA cases shows that the FIRs filed across districts were a mere cut-and-paste job by police officials. In several cases, the court criticised the police for “non-application of mind”, denial of due process to the accused, and repeated use of the law to merely deny bail.
