Kanwar yatra: Plea in Supreme Court against UP's QR code order for eateries
NEW DELHI: A petition has been filed in
Supreme Court
challenging
Uttar Pradesh
government's directive to shopkeepers to put up QR codes at their eateries along the route of Kanwar Yatra, which could be scanned to reveal the names of the owners.
SC is likely to hear the matter on July 15.
In July last year, SC had stopped govts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, among others, from implementing their directives to shop owners and hawkers along the routes of Kanwar Yatra to display their names, along with those of staff members, at their outlets, and held that food sellers only needed to mention the kind of food they were serving. "We deem it appropriate to pass interim order prohibiting the enforcement of the impugned directives.
In other words, the food sellers (including dhaba owners, restaurants, foods and vegetable sellers, hawkers, etc) may be required to display the kind of food that they are serving to the kanwariyas. But they must not be forced to display the name/identity of the owners and the employees deployed in their respective establishments," the court said in its order passed on July 22.
Challenging the new order of UP govt, the plea filed in the apex court by Delhi University professor Apoorvanand Jha and activist Aakar Patel said that the measure amounted to violation of SC's last year order, since it was intended to achieve the same discriminatory profiling that was stopped by the court.
"(News reports) confirm that all eateries on the Kanwar route are required to display QR codes that allow 'customers to access ownership details'. These steps effectively serve the same unconstitutional end through digital means, in wilful disobedience of this Court's directions," the petition said.
"Vague and overbroad directives deliberately mix up the licensing requirements with the other unlawful demand to display religious identity, and leave scope for violent enforcement of such a manifestly arbitrary demand both by vigilante groups and by authorities on the ground. There is grave and imminent risk of irreparable injury to the fundamental rights of affected vendors, particularly from minority communities, unless this Court issues immediate directions to restrain Respondents from continuing this indirect implementation," it added.
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