The Supreme Court (SC) sought an answer from the Central Government over the cancellation of 3 crore ration cards in India. Recently, due to the non linking of Aadhaar Cards with ration cards, the Central Government cancelled nearly 3 crore ration cards.
Koili Devi, a resident of Jharkhand, filed a Public Information Litigation (PIL) against the Central Government for scrapping ration cards.
Hearing the petition filed by Ms. Devi, the Supreme Court (SC) bench sought an answer from the Government of India (GoI.) The bench headed by the Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde said, “We see the problem at hand and I have dealt with this kind of matter in Bombay High Court and I think this matter should be filed before the high court concerned.” The SC bench further said, “We are asking you (Centre) to respond because of the Aadhaar issue. This is not an adversarial litigation. We will hear it finally. Issue notice returnable in four weeks.”
The bench postponed the matter to some other day and said to give a final hearing date soon.
Besides S.A. Bobde, Justice A.S. Booanna and Justice V. Ramasubramanian comprised the bench of three SC judges. The bench also said, the matter should not be treated as an adversarial issue as it is too serious a matter and concerns a larger group of people.
Cancellation of 3 crore ration cards on failing to link Aadhaar Cards , would affect an average of 10 lakh people in a state . The matter came into light, after the SC took the petition filed on the basis of a death that happened in 2018 due to starvation.
The eleven year old daughter Santoshi, of Koili Devi of Simdega district, Jharkhand, died due to starvation on the 28th of September 2018., Santoshi’s sister Gudiya Devi is the joint petitioner in the case. As per the petition Santoshi, who belonged to a poor Dalit family, died as the local authorities had cancelled the ration card of her family since they failed to link it with the Aadhaar. It said that subsequently, the family stopped receiving rations from March 2017 and as a result, the entire family had been starving.
The petitioner said after failing to link the Aadhaar Card with the ration card, many people across India, especially the poor are suffering starvation.
The Court took the matter and sought a response on this from the Central Government and the state governments.
During the court proceedings on the 17th of March, the petitioner’s advocate Mr. Gonsalves persisted it to be an important issue as the Centre has cancelled around three crore ration cards.
Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi, who represented the Central Government, opposed Mr. Gonsalves and said it is a wrong statement made by Mr. Gonsalves that the Centre has cancelled the ration cards. Mr. Aman also said the Centre earlier said that reports suggest that the deaths were not due to starvation. He said, “No one was denied food because of lack of valid Aadhaar card.”
Blaming state governments for the same, Aman Lekhi said, “If ration cards are not there, states must take responsibility.”
The Central Government also insists that they had issued clarifications to state governments that no one would be denied food rations. Those who did not have Aadhaar could get the benefits by using other identity proofs such as voter Id cards.
Justifying the move of ration cards cancellation, they said to curb subsidy leaks, the GoI cancelled fraudulent ration cards.
The matter is still pending with the SC. The next hearing regarding the matter is yet to be announced.
Stay tuned for further updates.
