Pardarshita filed writ petition with the support of HRLN in High Court for not issuing renewed BPL cards

Dear Friends

Greetings!

We would like to share the progress which has been done after the Bawana residents received rejection letter from the Food & supply Department in the month of August’09.

As this had never happened in the history of PDS that the people who had applied for ration card, get rejection letter from the department once their applications get rejected by the department.

All the aggrieved people filed appeal with the Assistant Commissioner of Food & supply department, but the appellate authority neither called the people for hearing nor sent any reply.

As a result, this matter was persuaded in the High Court. The high Court has accepted the case. The Court has issued notice to the Department and the proceedings are in process.

PDS Control Order 2001 section 11(2) states that “Any person aggrieved by an order of the designated authority denying the issue or renewal of a ration card or cancellation of the ration card may appeal to the Appellate Authority within thirty days of the date of receipt of the order”, but it had never happened in the history of PDS.

In 2007 around 4.4 lac people of Delhi applied for the renewal of their BPL ration cards.

Till 2009 around 1.25 lac people neither get their renewed ration cards back from the department nor get any information regarding the status of their cards. Whenever they go to their respective circle offices to enquire about the status of their renewed ration cards, they only get bad words from the employees of Circle office.

Pardarshita supported the people of Bawana in filing the RTI application to know the status of their ration cards. This resulted in issuing of Rejection letters to the people not only in Bawana but also in other District of Delhi.

When the people received the rejection letter with the reason for rejection, they found that the reason which the department has mentioned for rejecting the renewal of ration card is completely wrong.

Therefore people appealed before the appellate authority U/s 11(2) of PDS Control Order 2001, but the Appellate Authority neither sent any reply to complainant nor conducted any hearing.

Thereafter Pardarshita filed the Writ Petition in High Court with the help of HRLN. The High Court accepted the petition and issued notice to the Food & Supply Department on 23rd Feb’10. The hearing is scheduled on 11th March’10.

With Warm Regards

Ritu MehraWrit Petition against Food & Supply Dept. for not issuing Renewed BPL card.