Supreme Court: The 3-Judge Bench comprising of Madan B. Lokur, Deepak Gupta and Hemant Gupta, JJ. pronounced an order while imposing costs on various States with the primary concern regarding “Mid-Day Meal” Scheme.
The present order specifies the allegations submitted by the petitioner, stating that the food-grains have been disappearing and not reaching the schools and thereby the benefit of Mid-Day Meal Scheme is being denied to children.
For the above-stated allegation, the Court with disappointment stated that States have been asked to render assistance and to upload all the data so that necessary corrective steps can be taken from time to time and even after various orders in that regard, no co-operation has been seen from the States.
Further, the Bench stated that, on 26-10-2018, it was submitted by the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha that they would comply with the requirements of the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, but the Court stated that a month has passed and there has been absolutely no progress by the States, which leaves no option other than imposing costs of Rs 1,00,000 and a direction being given to deposit the amount with Supreme Court Legal Services Committee.
The Court lastly, stated that NCT of Delhi had no representative on the last day of the hearing, and for the present hearing the appearance of the representative serves no purpose as no information is available, therefore, the costs of Rs 2,00,000 are imposed.
The present matter has been asked to be listed after 4 weeks. [Antarrashtriya Manav Adhikaar Nigraani Parishad v. Union of India,2018 SCC OnLine SC 2677, Order dated 04-12-2018]
