The Supreme Court stays a Madras High Court order that had imposed a blanket ban on cow and calf slaughter across Tamil Nadu, after the state government argued the ruling went well beyond what had actually been sought.
The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Madras High Court order that had imposed a blanket ban on cow and calf slaughter across Tamil Nadu, granting relief to the state government after it challenged the ruling. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said the High Court order's final direction "prima facie required correction" and issued notice for further hearing.
The Madras High Court, in a bench comprising Justices Swaminathan and Lakshminarayanan, had passed the original order on May 27 — the eve of Bakrid — while hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by K. Surya Prasanth, General Secretary of Hindu Makkal Katchi. The petition itself had only sought to confine slaughter to designated places, but the bench went further, imposing a statewide ban on cow and calf slaughter on any day.
Appearing for the Tamil Nadu government, senior counsel Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that the High Court's direction contradicted the Tamil Nadu Animal Preservation Act, 1958, which permits the slaughter of cows over ten years old — animals no longer fit for work or breeding — subject to proper certification. The state's position was that the High Court had granted relief nobody had actually asked for, going beyond the scope of the original petition, and that existing law already regulates the conditions under which slaughter may take place without requiring a total ban.
With the stay in place, the Madras High Court's blanket ban does not currently take effect, and the matter will return to the Supreme Court for further hearing. The case adds to a busy docket of Tamil Nadu-related matters currently before the courts, alongside the ongoing dispute over by-elections to five vacant Assembly constituencies.
Supreme Court Madras High Court Tamil Nadu Government Judiciary July 13, 2026