Missing papers do not prove intent to slaughter: Supreme Court sets aside a cattle transport conviction
Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran hold the reverse burden under the Chhattisgarh cattle law applies only once the ingredients of the offence are proved.
A man convicted of transporting cattle for slaughter has had his conviction set aside by the Supreme Court, which held that the statutory presumption against an accused in such cases cannot be switched on until the prosecution has first proved the ingredients of the offence. The only thing established was that a truck carrying thirty-two bullocks was intercepted and the animals seized. There was nothing to show they were being taken for slaughter, and a veterinary doctor and the head of the cattle shelter entrusted with them both said the animals were fit and good for ploughing. Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran allowed the appeal and set aside the orders of all three courts below.
A truck, a car behind it, and six convictions
The appellant was one of six accused convicted under the Chhattisgarh Agricultural Cattle Preservation Act, 2004 for transporting cattle in violation of Section 6, and sentenced under Section 10 to one year's rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000.
The allegation was that thirty-two bullocks were being carried by truck from Keduwa towards Odisha when a head constable, acting on information, detained it. The cattle were seized and the driver and cleaner arrested. A Bolero car travelling ahead of the truck was also detained on the allegation that it was escorting the vehicle, and the four people in it were arrested — the appellant among them.
The trial court convicted, and the first appellate court and the revisional court affirmed. The High Court, in the order under challenge, restricted the sentence to the period already served — so by the time the matter reached the Supreme Court the appellant had nothing left to serve. He came nonetheless, challenging the conviction itself rather than the sentence, and the Court granted leave and decided it on the merits. The order is marked reportable.
What five witnesses established
The prosecution examined five witnesses. The veterinary doctor's report stated clearly that all the animals were fit and good for agricultural purposes, suitable for ploughing. Their apparent health was corroborated by the president of the cattle shelter committee entrusted with their possession. The head constable who carried out the interception established, as all the courts found, the interception and the seizure. The two independent witnesses who attested the seizure turned hostile, accepting their signatures on the seizure memorandum but identifying none of the accused.
On the appellant's own position, the Court found a gap. What had been established was only that the truck was intercepted and the cattle seized; there was nothing substantial to prove that the Bolero car was escorting it. Before the revisional court the truck driver had argued that the passengers in the car had hired the truck and that the cattle belonged to them, but no such contention was taken by the accused before the trial court, nor was any such explanation offered in the statement under Section 313.
When the reverse burden switches on
The High Court had extracted Sections 6 and 10 of the Act — the first creating the offence, the second the penalty — and had also referred to Section 11, which casts a reverse burden on the accused to prove that the slaughter or transportation of agricultural cattle was not in violation of the Act.
That provision, the Supreme Court held, has a condition precedent. Section 6 specifically creates the offence of transporting cattle for the purpose of slaughter, or with the knowledge that they are likely to be slaughtered. Beyond a mere presumption of such intention by the head constable, there was nothing on record to show the cattle were being carried for slaughter. The reverse presumption in Section 11 applies only if the essential ingredients for alleging the offence are first proved before the trial court; in that event, the onus shifts to the accused to prove that the transport or the slaughter was not in violation of the Act.
The Court then addressed the point most likely to recur in such prosecutions. The mere fact that the transport was not accompanied by any documents cannot lead to a presumption that it was for slaughter. If the absence of documents validating the transportation offends some other statute, the consequences must flow from that statute — it cannot be converted into an assumption that this Act was violated.
Order
The Court found no reason to uphold the conviction, especially where a veterinary doctor and the president of the cattle shelter committee had both stated categorically before the court that the seized cattle were fit and good for agricultural use such as ploughing.
The revisional order under appeal, along with the order of conviction and sentence passed by the trial court and the first appellate court, was set aside. The appellant's conviction was accordingly set aside and the appeal allowed. Pending applications stood rejected.