On May 13, a week after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power in West Bengal ending more than a decade rule of Trinamool Congress (TMC), the newly-formed Suvendu Adhikari government issued a public notice invoking the West Bengal Animal Slaughter Control Act, 1950. The notice issued just two weeks before Eid al-Adha, mandates that no person shall slaughter bulls, bullocks, cows, calves, male or female buffaloes, without first obtaining a certificate declaring the animal “fit for slaughter.” The certificate, it states, may only be issued when the animal is “over 14 years of age for work or breeding” or has become “permanently incapacitated due to age, injury, deformity or any incurable disease”. It further specifies that slaughter may occur only at a municipal slaughterhouse or a location identified by local administration. Public slaughter is “strictly prohibited”. The government has described this as enforcement of the 1950 Act and a series of Calcutta high court orders, beginning from a 2018 order, which made mandatory the issuance of such notice itself at least a week before Eid al-Adha, to a 2022 order emphasising the use of television, audio-visual media and SMS alerts to inform the public about the same. The legal architecture is not new. However, its invocation comes in the aftermath of post-election violence targeting Muslim communities, and thus demands careful constitutional examination.Following the new BJP government’s notice, several petitions were filed before the high court, including by TMC MLA Akhruzzaman and TMC MP Mahua Moitra challenging the notice. Some sought invocation of the exemption clause as provided in the 1950 Act, whereas others sought strict implementation of the notice. A demand for the restriction was also raised in 2022, when a petitioner filed a public interest litigation substantiating the non-implementation of the law during the TMC rule. In its hearing on May 21, the a division bench of chief justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen of the Calcutta high court refused to stay the notice, stating that it was in accordance with the 2018 order that had attained finality. The possible impact of this notice on the festival days later, is “no case for grant of interim relief”, the court stated and directed the government to decide on the exemption clause within 24 hours, which it did not.Also read: Vande Mataram, Cow, OBC Reset: With its Orders, Bengal’s New BJP Govt Tests the Limits of Shock TherapyIn fact, the court intensified the anxiety surrounding the notice, by asking the state to clarify in the notice that sacrificing cows is not a religious requirement on Eid al-Adha. An unsaid prohibitionThe qurbani (sacrifice) on Eid al-Adha is obligatory practice for people of Islamic faith. It honours Prophet Ibrahim and his willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to divine command. This sacrifice is considered among the most significant acts of worship. Islamic jurisprudence also prescribes some prerequisites for a valid qurbani – the animal must be healthy and free from major defects, it cannot be blind or have severed ears or horns, and most importantly, it cannot be sick, injured or permanently incapacitated. The criteria laid down by the BJP government for obtaining the certificate, however, are the precise inverse of these prerequisites. To slaughter an animal “over 14 years of age” or “permanently incapacitated” is against the tradition for a sacrifice. As a result, by applying criteria drawn from agrarian utility legislation to the regulation of religious sacrifice, the BJP government is achieving the effect of a prohibition without its form. It would be dishonest to suggest that this problem originated with the BJP. The 1950 Act and its 14-years-old threshold and permanently incapacitated criteria long predate the present BJP administration. The TMC government has also issued notices under the same framework. The June 2024 notification invoked the same 1950 Act and directed veterinary officers to issue certificates on the day of Eid al-Adha. The only difference is that the previous notices enabled a regulated practice, whereas the BJP’s notice is designed for no exemptions. The enforcement shift is most vividly illustrated not by the notice but by what followed it. On May 16, 2026, newly-elected BJP MLA Rekha Patra stopped a cattle-laden vehicle in her constituency Hingalganj, demanding that the transporters produce “birth certificates” of their cows to prove eligibility for slaughter. “As our government has directed, there will be a strict ban on slaughtering cows below 14 years. If anyone is found transporting cows illegally, we must catch them and ask them to show the birth certificates of the cows. Due course of law will be followed if anyone fails to show a birth certificate”, she warned. It is nowhere mentioned in the Calcutta high court orders or in the notice that a “birth certificate” is required for eligibility for slaughter. This unsanctioned invention by an elected legislator has raised anxiety among the cattle traders, as well as for the Muslim community in general ahead of Eid.The case of Hanif QuareshiThe constitutional framework of this conflict can be traced back to a 1958 decision of the Supreme Court in Mohd. Hanif Quareshi & Others vs The State Of Bihar (and Connected), wherein a five-judge bench addressed challenges to legislation banning cow slaughter in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Muslim butchers and cattle traders from the Quraishi community had argued that the ban infringed their fundamental right under Article 25 that guarantees the freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion, as the law violates their right to freely practise religion, the sacrifice on Eid al-Adha being an essential practice of Islam.The top court did not categorically dismiss the religious claim. Rather, it found that the claim was “extremely meagre”. Relying on Hamilton’s translation of Hedaya, a 12th century juristic work of Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani, the apex court had noted that the qurbani for one person is goat, and for seven persons is a cow or camel, which makes cow an option, not obligatory. The court had held that a practice that is merely sanctioned, preferred or permitted, but not religiously compelled, would fall outside the scope of Article 25. This is the same logic deployed by the Calcutta high court in deciding the 2026 petitions. In Hanif Quareshi’s case, the Court had pointed out that seven goats cost more than one cow and poorer Muslims could afford a shared cow when they could not afford individual goats. However, this “economic compulsion” was not treated as sufficient to claim constitutional protection as such a compulsion was not a “religious compulsion”. It assumed that an economically accessible substitute, such as buffalo, would be available. The Bengal notice, which applied to buffaloes, foreclosed the top court’s assumption. The poor Muslim family who could not afford seven goats and relied on a shared buffalo now finds that substitute sanctioned with the conditions it cannot satisfy either. In the Shirur Mutt (1954) case, the Supreme Court laid down the Essential Religious Practices (ERP) test, which originally demarcated religious and secular aspects of a religion to allow state intervention for the purpose of governing the secular aspects, such as, trusts and charitable endowments. The state’s intervention was, however, not allowed in essentially religious practices.A distinction of essential practice of a religion was drawn in Quareshi, and further crystallised in Durgah Committee (1961) by limiting constitutional protection to only essential and integral practices of a religion, while subjecting “unessential” and “superstitious” practices to scrutiny. Such an application of the test has been severely criticised by the scholars as it allows the courts to pronounce on the matters of religion, by interpreting religious texts and scriptures, a domain it holds no expertise in. Moreover, the text of the constitution itself does not limit its protection to essential and integral practices. The 2018 Sabarimala temple entry case was also decided by invoking the ERP test. It is being reviewed again in 2026, by a nine-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court wherein several judges have expressed skepticism about whether a secular court should pronounce on the matters of religion. The top court has reserved its judgment.The notice does not merely strain Quareshi’s reasoning on Article 25. It contradicts the judgment’s logic itself. Also read: As Cow Violence Comes to Bengal, BJP Leader Says ‘Bajrang Dal Will Guard’ Against SmugglingThe Quareshi case drew a line. A useful animal may legitimately be protected by the state, while a useless animal is one the state cannot reasonably protect. The 2026 notice, permitting slaughter only of animals “over 14 years of age or permanently incapacitated” is, in Quareshi’s language, animals whose protection cannot be supported as reasonable. The notice has not merely restricted qurbani, it has structured the law so that the only affordable animals available for lawful slaughter are precisely those that Islamic jurisprudence forbids as sacrifice, and vice versa. This can be drawn from Quareshi order, wherein the court had noted that the Cattle Preservation and Development Committee, upon whose recommendations the slaughter laws were made, had specifically not prohibited the slaughter of animals over 14 years of age and of animals permanently unfit for work or breeding. The 14-year threshold was the Committee’s approximation of the age at which an animal’s productive value expires, as completely banning slaughter would be a “negative approach” to the problem.In the ruling, the Supreme Court had also recorded that beef and buffalo were primarily consumed by poorer Muslims, Christians and members of Scheduled Castes, for whom goat was effectively inaccessible. To deprive them of it was “at any rate partially, a matter of necessity”.Rise of Muslim-targeted violenceHowever, the new notice cannot be read as a legal instrument in isolation from its political moment. Following the BJP’s decisive victory on 206 seats out of 294 assembly seats, widespread post-poll violence was reported across multiple districts in West Bengal. The Association for Protection of Civil Rights documented 34 separate incidents, including the killing of a Muslim man while protecting a mosque in Gosanimari, Cooch Behar; the vandalisation of the Jama Masjid in Darjeeling; attacks on Muslim-owned meat shops and homes; and BJP victory processions accompanied by explicit threats against non-vegetarian traders. West Bengal is witnessing the rise of a bulldozer state, where demolition of Muslim-owned properties proceeds in contravention of Supreme Court’s 2024 guidelines, just like in other BJP-governed states. It was in such an environment that the notice was issued.In an unrelated case of Lt. Col. Nitisha (2021), the Supreme Court recognised the doctrine of indirect discrimination, observing that a law neutral on its face may disproportionately impact a particular community. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had stated that ‘indirect discrimination’ is “not to refer to discrimination which is remote, but is, instead, as real as any other form of discrimination. Indirect discrimination is caused by facially neutral criteria by not taking into consideration the underlying effects of a provision, practice or a criterion.” This is relevant because a certificate regime administered by district-level officials in constituencies where mosques are being vandalised, where meat shops owned by Muslims are being demolished during victory processions and where cattle traders are being threatened is not a neutral administrative mechanism – it is a power delegated to ground-level actors in a moment of communal volatility. As per the government, the violation of the new notice is a cognisable offence and may result in registration of an FIR directly and may lead to an imprisonment of up to six months.The notice is not merely a question of religious freedom in the abstract. It must be read within a broader political milieu in the BJP-governed states that has systematically targeted Muslim livelihoods, spaces and practices through the machinery of formally neutral laws like cattle vigilantism, selective demolition, harassment of Muslim traders around festivals. Can 82 slaughter houses, as in 2021, suffice for over 20 million Muslims of West Bengal? The underenforcement of the law during the TMC government is bound to lead to overenforcement in the new BJP government. West Bengal, under its new chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, has also categorically discontinued madrasa and minority welfare programmes, offering a case study in how that process begins.Quareshi’s case is not an isolated moment of judicial pronouncement with consequences inadequately reckoned. It is a part of the broader pattern that has accumulated, across decades.In Ismail Faruqui (1995), the Supreme Court upheld the acquisition of 67 acres in Ayodhya including the site of the demolished Babri Masjid. It reasoned that a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam as namaz can be offered anywhere, even in the open. This observation was made without systematic engagement with Islamic theology, and without considering the significance of a mosque as a mandatory site of congregational prayers.The downstream consequences have been both severe and, at times, cruelly ironic. In March 2024, a Delhi Police sub-inspector was caught on video physically assaulting Muslim men offering namaz on a road in Inderlok. Namaz in the open was necessitated by the shortage of mosque space in urban areas where Muslim communities have long been denied permission to build or expand places of worship. The officer was eventually suspended but the incident exposed the Faruqui logic. A court had declared that namaz could be offered anywhere, even in the open, while state functionaries prevented it from being offered anywhere, including in the open. The constitutional ruling that was supposed to establish an alternative had, in reality, contributed to the elimination of both the original and the substitute.Similarly, in January 2026, the Uttar Pradesh police detained 12 Muslim individuals for offering namaz in a private house in Bareilly. The owner of the house was threatened with bulldozer action. Allahabad high court had to intervene to issued protection orders for the owner and said any violence against him or his property would prima facie be considered to have occurred “at the instance of the state”. In Sambhal, which had previously faced violence during a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid, police prohibited namaz on roads and rooftops ahead of the last Friday of Ramzan, citing “safety concerns”. Each of these instances invokes some legitimate state interest, such as animal welfare, property law, public order. Each, examined alone, may survive constitutional challenge. This is precisely the problem. This pattern is not limited to any single judgment or public notice, but in their accumulation. In each case, the court pronounced on the essentiality of a Muslim practice by going into theology, without the competence. In the Sabarimala review case, the oral remarks made by several judges suggest that the judgment might bring a fundamental judicial shift, a recognition that a secular court may lack the competence to decide theological questions. If the bench abandons or curtails the ERP test, it would represent a significant course correction. But will that undo the wrong of the decades? The architecture of diminishment is not undone by the removal of one brick. It is built into the landscape now, in the practices that have been quietly surrendered and spaces that have been quietly abandoned. It is difficult to dismantle, as illustrated by Calcutta high court’s denial to interfere with the notice. When courts pronounce on what a religion requires without the competence to do so, they do not merely overreach, they open a door for governments to walk through it. Communities bear the cost. Saima Anjum is an LLM scholar at the National Law University, Delhi and an alumna of Faculty of Law, Jamia Millia Islamia.