New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its judgement on a batch of petitions challenging state laws allowing bull-taming sport ‘Jallikattu’ and bullock cart races.

One of the petitioners, PETA has challenged the state law formulated by Tamil Nadu which allows ‘Jallikattu’ sport. Jallikattu aka eruthazhuvuthal is a bull-taming sport played in Tamil Nadu as part of the Pongal harvest festival.

The matter was heard by a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice KM Joseph. The bench also comprising Justices Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar asked parties to file a collective compilation of written submissions within a week.

The top court said since nobody is using any weapon in Jallikattu and the blood may only be an incidental thing, therefore, this cannot be categorised as a blood sport. Justice KM Joseph said cruelty may be involved in the sport people do not take part in the event to kill the animal.

“Because there is death does not mean it is a blood sport. I don't suggest that people who are going to participate and climb on to the bulls are going there in order to extract blood in that event. People are not going to kill the animal. Blood may be an incidental thing,” Constitution bench said.

The court made the remark in response to the submission of senior advocate Shyam Divan, a counsel for some of the petitioners, who insisted ‘Jallikattu’ is a blood sport. In his submission, advocate Shyam Divan had cited a research paper on ‘blood sport’ and said media reports have documented that spectators are injured and even gored to death in and outside the arena of the bull taming sport.

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(With inputs from media agencies)