Denial of ration card due to failure of biometric authentication is violation of HC order

By Bijay Mishra
Bhubaneswar , 22-9-24

There is widespread resentment among the people as they are facing problems for E-KYC verification. 

Mr Prafulla Samantara ,President ,Lok Shakti Abhiyan  and Mr Sameet Panda of “Khadya Suraksha Abhiyan” appealed the Govt not to make Adhar card as mandatory for ration.Mr Samañtara said that denial of ration card due to failure of biometric authentication is violation of high court order . Government must immediately give ration cards to migrant and unorganised sector workers as directed by Supreme Court . 

Now all ration card holders of the State are directed by the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare department to mandatorily undertake EKYC in a time bound manner and failure to get EKYC of the whole family will result in cancellation of ration card and stoppage of ration. 

Ration shopkeepers have been empowered to carry out the EKYC process thereby allowing them to exercise power and discretion over it. The ration shopkeeper has absolutely no role in issuance and cancellation of ration cards as that is the prerogative of the Food Department.

The mandatory EKYC of all ration card holders are violation order of Hon’ble Odisha High court in Prafulla Samantara Vs State of Odisha (WP(C) no 16579 of 2020) where the state government has been directed (on dated 24.04.2022) to “ensure that no ration card holder is denied ration for want of seeding of Aadhaar or bank account number”. In the same case the food supplies and consumer welfare department in its affidavit filed before the honorable High court on dated 18.05.2022 has mentioned that around 1.47 lakh ration card beneficiaries in the state receive their entitled ration through Aadhaar bypass mechanism without needing to submit their Aadhaar. The EKYC drive by the state government would exclude these ration card holders whose entitlement is protected by the order of the high court. 

The campaign leaders Mr Samantaray & Mr Panda demand that the government immediately halt the EKYC process to prevent further distress among ration cardholders. Further, the government must immediately issue ration cards to all those left out of the purview of the NFSA on account of the failure of the government of India to carry out the census of 2021 and implement the direction of the Supreme Court to issue ration cards to those having e-shram cards but without ration cards.