Shambo, the holy bull condemned to death by government-backed farmers in Wales for having TB, won't be going to that great processing plant in the sky — at least, not yet.

A High Court judge in Cardiff became the beatific bovine's saviour on Monday morning, quashing what he called a "wrong" and "unlawful" decision from the Welsh Assembly two weeks ago that ordered Shambo's death.

Shambo, a TB-infected bull, won a high court victory on Monday to be saved from slaughter. A high-profile campaign by monks who worship Shambo led to worldwide attention.
(Barry Batchelor/Associated Press)

The six-year-old black Holstein, revered by Hindu monks from the Skanda Vale community in southwest Wales, was diagnosed in April with bovine tuberculosis. While farmers had sympathized with the temple and their worship of Shambo, they argued the bull should be put down in the same way as commercial livestock in order "to protect both human and animal health."

Hindus from all over the world cried foul and more than 20,000 people campaigned online to save the infected bull, saying the proposed slaughter would violate sacred religious principles.

After the Welsh Assembly backed the farmers, the Skanda Vale Temple took the case to the courts last week.

On Monday, Judge Gary Hickinbottom ruled the assembly had "adopted the wrong approach" and would have to reconsider the matter.

"This judgment … rules that the decisions of 3 May and 3 July to issue the slaughter notice and to pursue the slaughter under that notice were unlawful and will be quashed," Hickinbottom said, although he also made clear that the ruling "does not, of course, guarantee that, as the community wish, Shambo will live until he dies a natural death."

As part of the campaign to save the bull, the Skanda Vale monks set up online pages and blogs where web surfers could read Shambo's "thoughts of the day" or watch Shambo's life in quarantine — actually a hay-filled shrine — via a webcam dubbed the "Moo Tube."

Under British law, livestock suspected of carrying bovine TB must be slaughtered, but the temple's lawyer had argued that Shambo is a symbolic bull whose destruction would constitute a violation of deeply held religious views.