The Gujarat High Court on Friday dismissed a petition challenging the temporary closure of a slaughterhouse in Ahmedabad during a Jain festival, Bar and Bench reported.

A single bench of Justice Sandeep Bhatt said that closure was a reasonable restriction imposed by the administration and does not violate any fundamental rights.

The court was hearing a petition filed by an organisation named Kul Hind Jamiat-al-Quresh Action Committee Gujarat. The organisation, represented by Danish Qureshi Razawala, had challenged the shutting down of the sole slaughterhouse in Ahmedabad during the Paryushan Parv observed by the Jain community.

On August 18, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s standing committee had approved closing down the slaughterhouse between August 24 to August 31, as well as on days of associated festivities on September 5 and September 9, according to The Indian Express. Razawala had challenged the decision of the civic body before the High Court.

During the last hearing in the case, Justice Bhatt had criticised the petitioner for approaching the court at the last moment.

“Why are running at the last moment, we will not entertain this,” the judge had said. “Every season you rush to the court. You can restrain yourself for one day or two days from eating [meat].”

However, Razawala, who argued the case in person, had said that the petition was about the fundamental rights of citizens.

“On other previous occasions also slaughterhouses were closed,” he had told the court. “Therefore we came before this court, if it passes an appropriate order, this process can be curbed for the rest of the time also.”

Razawala had also referred to observations by the High Court judge Justice Biren Vaishnav, who had said in December that the city civic body could not stop residents from eating non-vegetarian food.

Justice Vaishnav had made the statement while hearing a plea by vendors whose carts were seized from the main roads by the civic body in Navratri.