CHENNAI: The ban on sale and consumption of beef in Maharashtra by the state's BJP government provoked reactions in Chennai on Friday, when a group of advocates held a 'beef eating protest' on Madras high court campus to drive home the point that governments had no business to decide the eating habits of citizens.

Though the canteens on the high court campus themselves are off-bound for non-vegetarian food, the protesting advocates brought beef preparations from restaurants and served them to demonstrators and onlookers. "We condemn the government of Maharashtra for bringing this communal legislation, it infringes on the fundamental rights of citizens to choose their own food," said a young lawyer. Maharashtra's new law extended the existing ban on cow slaughter to bulls and bullocks also.

The demonstration managed to attract the attention of only a small group of curious litigants and fellow lawyers, but the larger significance of the event was not lost on them.

"One cannot be oblivious to the caste angle in demands for non-vegetarian food items at public/government office canteens. But Maharashtra's cow slaughter ban has added a communal tinge to the issue, besides giving rise to apprehension that it would deny affordable non-vegetarian food to millions of citizens," said advocate M Antony Selvaraj, chairman, All India Association of Jurists.

But he said the protest could have been conducted better. "Involving intellectuals and activists from different fora would have given it more acceptance," Selvaraj said.

When informed about the protest, former judge of the Madras high court K Chandru told TOI: "The state can regulate a food trade, vegetarian or non-vegetarian, from a public health point of view, not on any other grounds."

A few years ago, a Supreme Court bench which included Justice Markandey Katju had said, "What one eats is one's personal affair, and it is a part of his right to privacy, which is included in Article 21 of the Constitution. It is a right to be let alone." The bench, however, concluded that closing butcher shops for nine days was not an excessive restriction.

Incidentally, Tamil Nadu has witnessed similar protests in the past. Activist-advocate P Rathinam had led demonstrations before the Madurai bench of the Madras high court demanding non-vegetarian dishes at the canteens there.

As for the Maharashtra rule, which obtained Presidential nod nearly 19 years after it was first enacted, Chandru said it would not stand the test of law. "It is more of a religious issue than food issue," he said, "How do you suddenly say you cannot eat beef."

