Paridhi Arya
Published on April 28, 2022 at 15:00 IST
The Supreme Court directed the Telangana Government to conduct field authentication of all those 1.9 million Ration Cards which got cancelled by them since 2014.
The Court observed that poor people who are dependent on these ration cards for essential grains cannot be deprived from it without proper verification.
“… We are talking about food grains and families…you cannot cancel the ration cards en masse without giving any opportunity to these people.” Bench said to Advocate P Venkat Reddy representing the state government in the matter.
The Apex Court directed Chief Secretary of State to file an Affidavit stating the set taken by the Government before cancelling these ration cards.
The Petition filed by SQ Masood who is a social activist seeking Supreme Court’s intervention against order of Telangana Government of cancelling the ration cards of 1.9 million people.
The Petitioner submitted in the Court that this act of State Government is of Arbitrary in nature and passed without due Process of Law.
“The computer will throw up ration card numbers meant to be deleted and the Authorities,” said the Petition.
The Court questioned the basis of decision of cancelling ration cards from the state government.
“You are dealing with people who take ration from Public Distribution System. This Special Leave Petition has been filed against a Judgement of the High Court by which the Writ Petition filed by the High Court in a Cryptic Order on the ground that no Relief can be granted with the lockdown being lifted. Cancel 19 lakhs of ration cards without an opportunity to the card holders to defend themselves?”, Justice L. Nageswara Rao said.
The Petitioner submitted that the cancelling of ration cards without giving the people a reasonable opportunity to be heard is arbitrary and against Article 21 and National Food Security Act, 2013 the High Court has erred by closing the Petition because of lockdown COVID-19 recalled.