New Delhi: Delhi University professor Apoorvanand and human rights activist Aakar Patel moved the Supreme Court on Sunday (July 21) against the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments’ directive to shopkeepers, asking them to display names of owners and employees outside establishments along the kanwar yatra route.
“The directives issued by the State of Uttar Pradesh and State of Uttarakhand cause disproportionate intervention and affect rights under Articles 14, 15 and 17. It also affects rights of those Muslim men who have been fired pursuant to the issuance of the above directives, which is in violation of Article 19(1)(g),” the petitions says according to LiveLaw.
“It is an endorsement of the practice of ‘untouchability’ which is explicitly barred ‘in any form’ under Article 17 of the Constitution of India. Article 17 also bars the enforcement of any form of disability arising out of ‘untouchability’, which would include encouraging the practice of not being served by people of certain castes and religion,” it adds.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra too filed a plea in the Supreme Court against the directives, according to LiveLaw. “The impugned Directives, issued with the alleged goal of respecting pilgrims’ dietary preferences and maintaining law and order, are manifestly arbitrary, issued without any determining principle, violate multiple constitutional rights, and outsource the State’s obligation of maintaining law and order upon the most vulnerable and marginalized sections of society,” her plea reads.
Another plea challenging this directive, filed by Association of Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), will be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday (July 22). A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti will hear the case, Bar and Bench reported.
Hindu pilgrims undertake the kanwar yatra around this time of year, travelling by foot to Uttarakhand, to collect water from the Ganga river. They then offer the water in Shiva temples. This year’s yatra will begin on Monday (July 22).
District authorities in Muzaffarnagar, followed by Saharanpur and Shamli, had ordered shopkeepers along the pilgrims’ route to display the names of the shop’s owners and its employees. The Muzaffarnagar police had claimed that this was being done to avoid confusion among kanwariyas.
After widespread criticism of this directive, the UP government on Friday (July 19) made it mandatory for all shops along the yatra’s route, across the state, to comply with the directive. Neighbouring Haridwar district authorities in Uttarakhand too have given such orders, the Statesman reported.
The move has drawn flak from most quarters, including senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi as well as BJP allies like Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Lok Dal. Congress called it an assault on shared Indian culture with party leader Priyanka Gandhi calling it a “crime against the Constitution”.
