NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court directed the AAP government to ensure that all those who didn’t get ration despite having e-coupons be provided ration by Thursday evening.
The direction was issued by a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad on a PIL by a law student alleging that thousands of needy people in the national capital are not getting ration under the public distribution system (PDS) despite having e-coupons issued by the Delhi government.
Advocate Kamlesh Kumar Mishra, who appeared for the law student, said that the bench rejected Delhi government’s request for a week’s time to deliver the rations and directed that it be delivered by Thursday evening.
In the hearing held through video conferencing, the high court also gave the petitioner liberty to move a fresh plea if the direction is not complied with by the government. Advocate Manoj, who appeared for the Food Corporation of India in the matter, confirmed that a direction was passed for providing ration.
The detailed order is yet to be made available. With the direction, the bench disposed of the petition by third-year law student Shabnam, who had said that the Delhi government announced that e-coupons can be obtained by filling a form online. However, the petition had stated that the form is not easy to fill and the website for applying for e-coupon crashed multiple times.
“Whenever the website is accessed, it permanently shows the message ‘server under heavy load! Please check after some time’. Moreover, most poor people cannot apply online as most do not have smartphones and there are no cyber cafes functioning during the lockdown,” it had said.
“They need to access the internet, have a mobile phone to generate an OTP, upload a photo of their Aadhaar card and a photo of their family, and finally, download the e-coupon. This makes the system inaccessible for the poorest who need rations,” it added.