Khushi Gupta
Published on: May 3, 2022 at 13:16 IST
The Supreme Court directed continuation of an Interim Order passed by the Kerala High Court asking the Lakshadweep Administration to continue providing meat and chicken to school children as part of the mid-day meal programme.
Issuing notice of the Petition against the High Court’s final Order dated September 17, 2021, a Bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice A S Bopanna directed that “In the meanwhile, the Interim Order passed by the High Court on 22.06.2021 shall continue”.
The Petitioner had approached the High Court, seeking Quashing of the Lakshadweep Administration’s May 21, 2021, Order “Whereby the Director of the Department of Animal Husbandry, Kavaratti…inter alia issued directions on the basis of the direction issued by the Secretary (Animal Husbandry), Union Territory of Lakshadweep, to close all the dairy farms run by the Department of Animal Husbandry and to dispose of the bulls, calves etc.”
“Immediately in the presence of the Action Committee Members by giving wide publicity and observing other formalities, and to quash…minutes of the UT Level Steering-cum-Monitoring Committee and District Task Force on mid-day meal scheme, dated 27.01.2021, whereby the existing menu was modified by deleting meat and chicken, and including fruits and dry fruits”.
The High Court dismissed the Petition saying that “The Petitioner has not made out any case of Arbitrariness or illegality in the Policy decision taken by the Lakshadweep Administration in the matter”.
It stated, “On an evaluation of the Law on the point, it is clear that more than everything, nutritional aspects and calorification should be the concern…rather than providing different kinds of food to the children.”
“When that is the national programme envisioned for the mid-day meal scheme by the framers of law, the petitioner cannot turn around to contend that the Lakshadweep administration has introduced a draconian law so as to interfere with the traditional food habits of the people of the island”.
“We are of the clear opinion that the petitioner has made the allegations against the administrator and the administration without understanding the implications of the Law involved in the matter for the mid-day meal scheme”, the High Court added.