Patna: The high court on Wednesday asked the Patna Municipal Corporation for a detailed report on the sale of meat in the open, coming down heavily on the civic body.

A division bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice Anil Kumar Upadhyay directed PMC commissioner Keshav Ranjan Prasad to submit the report after hearing a PIL on the sale of meat, chicken and fish in open shops.

The petition stated that not only are meat, chicken and fish shops running in prohibited areas in Patna but all and sundry were slaughtering on roadsides and hanging carcass in the open. The petition held this was not only unhygienic but also flagrantly violated the Bihar Municipal Act, 2007.

The court was told that numerous shops around Patna, including Boring Canal Road, Kankerbagh, Rajapur bridge and Patliputra, are blatantly flouting an earlier order of the high court to check the sale of chicken and mutton in the open. Vendors used to sell meat and fish in the open all throughout the city, the bench was told.

It was also pointed out that flesh being kept in the open was a sickening sight and bodies of slaughtered animals must be covered with cloth or behind a curtain, as flesh kept in the open gets contaminated by bacteria which cannot be washed with plain water.

"If infected flesh is consumed, one might contract diseases such as dysentery and diarrhoea. The liver also gets affected. In fact, heart patients should take special care while consuming non-vegetarian food as infected flesh may trigger trouble," the petition read.

The court observed that sale of meat in the open was not good for health. The bench directed Prasad to tell it why after a similar order passed earlier, shops selling mean and chicken in the open were still functioning. The PMC commissioner has been given four weeks to file the reply.

A Patna High Court division bench of Justice V.N. Sinha and Justice Prabhat Kumar had in 2014 directed the civic body to implement regulations related to open slaughterhouses in the city. The government's counsel had submitted that the regulation related to meat shops had been prepared and notified.

A copy of the same was submitted before the court, according to which no unlicenced chicken or meat shop should exist in the Patna municipal limits. The bench had then ordered the civic body to ensure enforcement of the norms and remove unlicenced shops from the city within a month.