The state authorities knowledgeable the Karnataka Excessive Court docket Wednesday that the Kambala bullock race’s impact on zoo animals can be evaluated by an knowledgeable panel. The submission by Advocate Normal Shashikiran Shetty got here within the wake of a PIL filed by Folks for the Moral Therapy of Animals (PETA) towards holding the kambala bullock race exterior the districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada. The kambala is a bullock race on an earthen observe involving two bullocks being directed ahead by a handler.
The animal rights group additionally requested {that a} November 2023 authorities order giving permission for such races be declared extremely vires and that motion be taken towards organisers of such races in Bengaluru. PETA had additionally raised a selected objection to holding a kambala race close to the Pilikula Organic Park Zoo in Mangaluru on account of the impact it might need on the animals. The race close to Mangaluru, which was initially set to occur on November 17, has since been placed on maintain.
Beforehand, PETA had argued on October 21 that the context by which the Supreme Court docket had upheld a Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act modification in Karnataka meant that the kambala ought to solely be held in these areas the place it was a conventional follow. This could limit it to being held within the coastal areas of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi. They’d argued that in contrast to in 2023, when a kambala race had been held in Bengaluru, the identical shouldn’t be allowed this 12 months as transporting the animals all the best way from coastal Karnataka to take part in a race would quantity to animal cruelty.
PETA’s counsel had argued, “This turns into a business occasion and now not conventional. There are tickets, meals courts, VVIP seats, lakhs of individuals anticipated to return for such occasions… It can’t be a present. It needs to be a conventional operate, which is a part of the tradition of a specific space.” The state had argued that horses had been imported and kambala was really a convention belonging to the tradition of Karnataka. The court docket had additionally directed that they had been to learn if any choices had been taken on permission for the race.
Advocate Normal Shashikiran Shetty said in court docket on Wednesday {that a} committee had been shaped to review the influence on the animals housed at Pilikula if the kambala was carried out. He said, “Now we have taken the deputy director of Chamarajnagar Zoological Gardens, the Division of Animal Husbandry, NITK Surathkal and the Air pollution Management Board. A four-member group has been assembled.”
The matter will likely be heard subsequent on December 4.
