Supreme Court issues notice to Uttar Pradesh government and others on petition against ban

Supreme Court issued notice to Uttar Pradesh Government and others on the petition against ban on Halal Products. The Supreme Court on Friday issued this notice on a petition filed by Jamiat Ulema-e-Maharashtra and others challenging the ban imposed by the Uttar Pradesh government on storage, distribution and sale of food products with Halal certification and registration of FIR.

Initially, the bench of Justices B.R.Gavai and Sandeep Mehta was not inclined to entertain the writ petition filed directly before the apex court and questioned the petitioners for not approaching the jurisdictional high court to seek relief, But with the petitioners explaining that the ban has a cascading effect on interstate trade and industry and affects consumers belonging to a particular community across the country, the bench issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and others to respond within two weeks. will be. Further, the top court refused to grant any interim relief in the case and said it would be considered at a later stage.

The petition, filed through advocate Sugandha Anand, said the notification issued by the Uttar Pradesh government violates Articles 14, 19 (1) (g), 21, 25, 26 and 29 of the Constitution of India and is arbitrary and unreasonable. . In November 2023, the Uttar Pradesh government passed an order to ban the production, storage, distribution and sale of Halal tagged food products with immediate effect.

The order said that running parallel systems leads to confusion regarding the quality of food items and is not acceptable under Section 89 of the Food Safety and Standards Act. It said, the authority to decide the quality of food items rests only with the authorities and institutions given in Section 29 of the said Act, which examine the relevant standards as per the provisions of the Act.

Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Police had booked companies like Halal India Private Limited Chennai, Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind Halal Trust Delhi, Halal Council of India Mumbai, Jamiat Ulama Maharashtra and others for allegedly exploiting religious sentiments to boost sales. FIRs were filed against entities for providing Halal certificates to customers of a specific religion.

The complainant expressed concern over a large-scale conspiracy, indicating alleged efforts to reduce the sales of products of companies lacking Halal certificates and alleged that people were being tricked into increasing sales by providing “fake” Halal certificates. Religious sentiments were taken advantage of.