GURGAON: Since Haryana’s decision in 2015 to enact a law banning cow slaughter and consumption of beef, vigilante groups have taken it upon themselves to stop cattle smuggling. But the law hasn’t achieved its basic objective of bringing offenders to book.
Conviction rates under the law have been and remained extremely low while investigations plod along. Last year, for instance, 402 cases were filed invoking provisions of the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan (HGSG) Act, but just eight reached the trial stage.
In Nuh, the district that reports most cases under the Act, 1,192 cases were pending in its courts as of December 2022 while trials were completed in just 69.
Only four of these cases ended in convictions.
The Manohar Lal Khattar-led Haryana government, within a year of assuming office, passed the HGSG Act in November 2015 to stop cow slaughter and smuggling and ensure welfare of cattle in the state. Under clauses of the Act, cow trafficking, slaughtering and possessing or consuming beef were prohibited. The ban was extended to the sale of canned beef.
However, in these eight years, the state has not formulated rules for effective implementation of the Act, without which investigations have lacked both purpose and direction, lawyers and police say. Meanwhile, networks of cow vigilantes have emerged on the scene. Led by Monu Manesar, the vigilantes are now under investigation for three recent deaths — of Nuh resident Waris Khan in January and Rajasthan residents Nasir and Junaid, whose burnt bodies were found in an SUV in Bhiwani on February 16.
In March 2019, Justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu of the Punjab and Haryana high court pulled up the state government for failing to ensure the arrest and conviction of accused booked under the Act.
Hearing an anticipatory bail plea of a man who allegedly smuggled cows in Nuh but hadn’t been arrested, the HC observed: “The situation is alarming and mere registration of FIRs for commission of offence under the Act of 2015, resulting in 100% acquittal by the trial courts, can only be termed as police paradise. By no stretch of the imagination can it be accepted that the law enforcement agency is successful in any manner in implementation of the Act.”
The first conviction came the same year, in December, when a Faridabad court handed three men three years of rigorous imprisonment under the Act for transporting cow skin in 2016. Police had recovered skins of 413 animals from their vehicles. But the rate of conviction has not improved. The first conviction in Gurgaon, which is within the south Haryana area that sees the bulk of cases registered under the Act, happened in July 2022. A cow smuggler was awarded 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for firing at a police team, injuring a head constable. Nuh’s only four convictions under the Act came between July and December 2022.
Getting to the trial stage takes time, but once in court, producing evidence has been the biggest challenge. In several cases that have fallen through, the prosecution could not prove the crime as police didn’t collect any evidence to prove that cows being transported were indeed being taken for slaughter. Prosecutions have also found their arguments weakened because there was no videography of the alleged crime scene or seizure to back them with visual proof.
In some cases, the accused were discharged as samples of beef recovered had autolysed — they had become unfit for testing. Trial courts have also found loopholes in documentation. For instance, in one case, the accused was let off because the memos submitted in court about recoveries were handwritten instead of being typed.
In order to improve conviction, cops have adopted measures like taking informers — a public representative or an NGO member along for raids — so they can be produced as independent witnesses during the trial. Senior police officers said they are also tightening up on forensics and holding meetings with judicial officers to evaluate gaps in prosecution.
Advocate Deepak Balyan, who Justice Sindhu had appointed as amicus curiae, submitted his report in August 2019 in which he made scathing observations on the system’s failure against the “powerful meat lobby”. His report highlighted that cattle were being transported for slaughter outside the state. This high profitability has created very high stakes in the meat trade and has increased the capacity of the meat lobby to spend lavishly in buying the cooperation of the authorities, it stated.
The report suggested immediate framing of rules under the Act and restricting transportation of cows between 7pm and 5am on the lines of Gujarat. Other suggestions included photography or videography during seizure of vehicles, confiscation of vehicles allegedly used for cattle smuggling and a provision for automatic review of acquittal orders of lower courts by a superior court.
Sarvan Garg, chairman of the Haryana Gau Seva Aayog (HGSA), said formulation of rules under the Act is in process. “Once the rules are framed, it will bring clarity and define the roles of different agencies for better enforcement and implementation of the Act,” he said.
Puran Yadav, vice-chairman of the Haryana Gau Seva Aayog, said vehicles used for cow smuggling return to roads once they are released by a court and are used by smugglers again. “We have suggested making changes in the Act to ensure seized vehicles are not released. It will help check cow smuggling for slaughter,” said Yadav.
On the reasons for low conviction, Gurgaon district attorney Rajesh Chaudhary said in many cases he had come across, the complainants were cops and the accused were not identified, which made the case weak. “Cases need independent witnesses or more concrete evidence, like videography and forensic evidence,” he said.
Advocate Tahir Hussain Rupariya, who has represented the accused in several cases of cow slaughter or smuggling that resulted in acquittal, said the complainant is often mentioned as a “secret informer” and the accused are not arrested from the spot. “The prosecution invariably fails to prove that those arrested later by police were actually present during the crime,” he said.
Nuh SP Varun Singla conceded police face practical problems that sometimes lead to procedural lapses. For instance, he said, it’s usually stolen vehicles that are used in trafficking, making it difficult to link them to the accused. Singla said police have studied bail orders and judgments to identify loopholes and a standard operating procedure has been issued for investigating officers.
“This has started to show results. Out of 294 anticipatory bail applications moved before the lower court from January to December last year, 112 were rejected and 40% of these applications were also rejected by the high court. The conviction rate will show a jump in two years, once these cases are decided,” Singla said.
