India News | Will Not Allow Anyone to Pull Wool over Our Eyes Where Mid-day Meals Are Concerned: HC to AAP Govt
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Delhi High Court on Friday pulled up the AAP government for filing a "misleading" affidavit regarding food security allowances paid to poor children, saying it will not allow anyone to "pull the wool over their eyes" especially where mid-day meals were concerned.
New Delhi, Aug 7 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Friday pulled up the AAP government for filing a "misleading" affidavit regarding food security allowances paid to poor children, saying it will not allow anyone to "pull the wool over their eyes" especially where mid-day meals were concerned.
A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan noted that while the Delhi government claimed that it pays Rs 540 per child every month under the mid-day meal scheme, its own affidavit said that in March this year it paid around Rs 7 crore to 8.21 lakh children enrolled with it, which came to less than Rs 100 per child.
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For the months of April to June, the Delhi government paid a total of about Rs 27 crore to around 5 lakh children out of a total 8.24 lakh, with around 2 lakh cases being under process and in another 75,000 cases there being a mismatch in the bank details, the bench was told.
After perusing the affidavit, it said even if only 5 lakh children were paid under the scheme, the amount ought to be around 27 crore for each of the months of April to June if each child was getting Rs 540.
"The affidavit appears to be obfuscating...It is deliberately misleading. This affidavit is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Where mid-day meals of poor children is concerned, we certainly are not going to permit anyone to pull the wool over our eyes," the bench said.
Delhi government counsel Jawahar Raja tried to explain the discrepancies, saying a lot of class 8 students would have dropped out after March and in many cases the bank details did not match what were on record, and urged the bench for more time to ascertain the reason for the discrepancies.
Though the bench gave the Delhi government time to explain the discrepancies, it did not appreciate the arguments of Raja.
"Counsel for the state, you should read your own affidavit. Without doing homework you are arguing matters. Be sure of what you are arguing.
"You should have on your fingertips all the details of number of children enrolled in the scheme, how many have been paid along with their bank details, how much each of them have been paid. All the figures should also tally," the bench said.
It gave the Delhi government more time to file an additional affidavit.
The bench was hearing a PIL by NGO Mahila Ekta Manch, which has sought directions to the Delhi government to provide cooked mid-day meals or food security allowances to eligible children during the COVID-19 lockdown when schools in the city are shut.
The Centre had earlier told the court that it has released over Rs 27 crore to the Delhi government as recurring central assistance under the mid-day meal scheme for the financial year 2020-21.
The NGO has said the purpose of providing mid-day meals or food security allowances was to boost the immunity of poor children during the pandemic.
During Friday's hearing, the NGO told the bench that only Rs 94 per child every month was being provided under the scheme and only 25 paise, which was hardly sufficient, was being provided for purchasing 100 g of foodgrains.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)