Defending the home delivery of the ration scheme, the Delhi government argued before the high court that “politics has captured the public interest” and termed the objections against it as “arrogant”. Describing it as a progressive scheme, the government said that there is no clear ban against it under the National Food Security Act.
“It would require a very strange law to suggest that in this time of… It is told that during the hearing of a petition challenging the ration distribution scheme, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the government, argued that one should not be eligible and entitled by this method.
Terming the petition filed by the Delhi Government Ration Dealers Association as a proxy suit, the government argued that NFSA being a Central Act, it is based on operational work conducted by the State Government and not by the Union.
“Your hegemony will have to see through this. Politics has finally taken over the public interest. ‘Don’t call it chief minister’ is the objection. You (the objectors) do not want a scheme that is profitable and has public support. Do it,” Singhvi submitted, referring to the initial objection of the central government against the name of the scheme. He also said that an “overwhelming percentage of people” in Delhi had opted for the scheme through the ‘call system’.
However, a division bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Jasmeet Singh said the question was not whether it was a better scheme, but whether it was covered under NFSA. It reminded that the central government in its arguments had mainly opposed the removal of Fair Price Shops (FPS) from the system.
“ASG also did not say that doorstep delivery cannot happen, but what is being said is an architecture… what are you proposing to do? If you are proposing to take food grains from the central government, give it to the tender contractors for cleaning and conversion, and they will deliver it to the beneficiaries, which means the FPS is nowhere,” the court said.
Singhvi said that every circle will have one FPS. “The person doing the home delivery from these circles picks up… not the bypass,” he said. The debate in this matter will continue on December 3.
On November 22, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati had termed fair price shops as an integral part of the NFSA’s architecture. On Monday, Bhati submitted that he was concerned with “full compliance with the mandate of the NFSA” and was not interested in anything else.
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