SC to Petitioners: Move Calcutta HC on Bengal Ration-Voter List Link!
SC to Petitioners: Move Calcutta HC on Bengal Ration-Voter List Link!
Supreme Court directs petitioners to Calcutta High Court concerning West Bengal's order linking essential ration benefits to voter list revisions. Is food security being unfairly denied?
The Supreme Court recently directed petitioners to approach the Calcutta High Court concerning a significant issue in West Bengal: the alleged linking of subsidised ration and nutrition to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters' lists. This move comes after a plea was filed in the Supreme Court arguing that a West Bengal government order from June 4 effectively strips lakhs of people, purged from the voters' list, of their access to crucial food security benefits.
The Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, an independent trade union representing agricultural labourers, marginal farmers, and sharecroppers, brought the matter before a Bench headed by Justice B.V. Nagarathna. They contended that the outcome of the SIR process has been improperly tied to the functioning of the Public Distribution System (PDS) and the Annapurna Yojana. The PDS is a vital welfare mechanism under the National Food Security Act of 2013, designed to provide essential food grains to economically vulnerable households. Similarly, the Annapurna Yojana aims to offer financial assistance to vulnerable women.
Advocate Prasanna S., representing the farmers’ group, stressed that access to food security benefits for those in economic hardship should not be contingent upon unrelated considerations, such as the SIR. He highlighted an "emerging pattern" across various States where similar exclusionary linkages are being drawn between SIR outcomes and welfare schemes. The petition argued that the June 4 order instructs authorities to identify, scrutinise, and delete beneficiaries based on classifications from the SIR, thereby introducing criteria entirely foreign to the spirit and purpose of the National Food Security Act, 2013, into the food security framework. Essentially, electoral status and inclusion in electoral rolls are being treated as valid considerations for determining who receives food benefits. The Supreme Court has reiterated that the Calcutta High Court is the more appropriate forum to hear this specific plea.
