State's First Responsibility Is To Provide Food: Supreme Court
NDTV
The top court was hearing a PIL seeking directions to the Centre, states and Union Territories (UTs) to formulate a scheme for community kitchens to combat hunger and malnutrition.
Asserting that a welfare state's first responsibility is to provide food to people "dying due to hunger", the Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed strong displeasure over the Centre's response on framing a pan-India policy to implement the Community Kitchen Scheme and granted it three weeks to hold a meeting with states.
A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli was also irked with the Centre's affidavit as it was filed by an official of the level of an Under Secretary and did not divulge details about the proposed scheme and its roll out as sought, and gave a "final warning" to the government.
The top court was hearing a PIL seeking directions to the Centre, states and Union Territories (UTs) to formulate a scheme for community kitchens to combat hunger and malnutrition.
"See if you want to take care of hunger, no Constitution or law will say no... This is the first principle: Every welfare state''s first responsibility is to provide food to people dying due to hunger."
