New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday issued notices to all state governments over allegations of starvation deaths of people who were deprived of their ration supplies for not having Aadhaar cards.
A bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde sought immediate response from the states on whether or not people are being deprived of ration on the grounds that they did not have Aadhaar cards.
Issuing the order, CJI Bobde said, “I was a member of the bench (which decided the Aadhaar case). The verdict in this case clearly mentioned that people cannot be denied services for not having Aadhaar card. We want to appoint a high-powered committee to probe into the allegations that people in many states were being denied ration for not possessing Aadhaar card.”
Appearing on behalf of the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the court that such reports suggested that the deaths were not due to starvation. “No one was denied food because of lacking Aadhaar card,” he said.
On the other hand, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, who appeared for petitioner Koili Devi, said, “In many states, notifications state that people without Aadhaar card cannot be denied services, but when the tribals go to the PDS centres, they do not get their ration supplies.”
The petition was filed on behalf of Koili Devi, whose 11-year-old daughter Santoshi from Simdega district in Jharkhand died of starvation September 28, 2018. Santoshi’ sister Gudiya Devi is the joint petitioner in the case.
The petition pointed out that 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 Aadhaar.
Subsequently, they stopped receiving ration from March 2017. As a result, the entire family had been starving. Even on the day Santoshi died, her mother could only serve her some tea with salt — the only thing the family had in its kitchen. According to the plea, Santoshi succumbed to hunger later that night.