A day after the Madras High Court permitted the State government to dole out Pongal cash gift of ₹1,000 to more than 1.85 crore ration cardholders across the State and restrained it from distributing the money to around 10.42 lakh cardholders, the government moved a petition before the court on Thursday with a plea to relax the restraint order and confine it to just 41,106 ration cardholders.
Appearing before Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and P. Rajamanickam, Additional Government Pleader E. Manohar informed the judges about the petition filed by the State urging the court to relax the restriction and requested for a early hearing. The senior judge replied that his Bench would hear the case as and when the High Court Registry numbers the petition and lists it before them for hearing.
The petition filed by Food and Consumer Protection Secretary Dayanand Kataria stated that there were five categories of ration cards in the State.
‘Not much of difference’
Passing interim orders on a public interest litigation petition filed against doling out cash gifts to all ration cardholders irrespective of their economic status, the court had on Wednesday permitted the State to disburse money to only three categories of ration cardholders.
Those who would benefit out of the court order were 76,99,940 Priority Household (entitled to all commodities including sugar) ration cardholders, 18,64,600 Priority Household- Antyodaya Anna Yojana (all commodities including 35 kg of rice) and 90,08,842 Non Priority Household (all commodities including rice) cardholders. The non beneficiaries were 10,11,330 NPHH (sugar option) cardholders and 41,106 NPHH — no commodities cardholders.
Pointing out that there was not much of a difference between NPHH (all commodities including rice) cardholders and NPHH (Sugar option) cardholders who had exercised the option to get additional sugar instead of rice through Public Distribution System, the State government informed the court that even before the interim order was passed on Monday 4,12,588 NPHH-S cardholders had been granted the Pongal gift ₹1,000 each.
Since the rest of 5,98,742 NPHSS (sugar option) cardholders were disappointed over non-receipt of money due to the court order, the government urged the Division Bench to relax the restraint in so far as these sugar option cards were concerned. It, however, did not seek relaxation with respect to those who use ration cards only as an identity proof and do not purchase any commodity from the ration shops.