The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the Uttar Pradesh government’s response to an application challenging the reported direction to food sellers along the Kanwar Yatra route to display QR code stickers that would reveal ownership details of the eatery and other compliance when scanned.
A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N K Singh asked the state to file its reply in a week and fixed the matter for hearing next on July 22.
Though the counsel appearing for Uttar Pradesh sought two weeks to file a reply, Senior Advocate Shadan Farasat, who appeared for the applicants, contended that the Yatra will be over in the next 10-12 days.
The application cited news reports that the state administration had issued a directive making it mandatory for the eateries to display the QR codes. It also referred to a “press note dated 25.06.2024 issued by the Chief Minister of U.P.” and said “it expressly calls for shop keeper names to be clearly displayed during the Yatra”.
The application said that similar directives to display names of owners outside the shops along the Kanwar Yatra route were also issued last year, but were stayed by the Supreme Court.
The fresh directive, it said, “couched under the garb of ‘lawful license requirements’ is a breach of privacy rights”.
The plea contended that “the requisite license is a self-contained certificate, which although reveals the name of the owner, is displayed inside the premises at a place where it may be accessed. Equating this requirement to display a normal-sized license with the directive to display name of owner, manager and other employees on billboards outside, or to not give eateries names which do not reflect the religious identity of the owner are de hors the license requirements.”
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It said that “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”.
The application sought a “stay” of all “further actions taken pursuant to or in furtherance of directives (whether oral, written or digital, including via QR codes) requiring or facilitating public disclosure of ownership/employee identity of food vendors along Kanwar Yatra routes in the States of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand…”.
