The Bombay High Court on Tuesday asked the Maharashtra government to submit an action taken report against the officers responsible for issuing bogus ration cards on December 11, failing which secretary of food and civil supply should remain present on that day.
As the government sought time to provide the required information, judge A M Khanvilkar and judge Mridula Bhatkar pulled up the state authorities, saying sufficient time had been given to them.
“Are you going to wait till District Collectors file their responses?,” they asked.
Taking a serious view of existence of bogus ration cards in Maharashtra, the high court had on last hearing asked the government to proceed against officers responsible for the illegal practice, failing which it threatened to order a top officer to take action in a time-bound manner.
The court had asked the government to give a district-wise break-up of fake ration cards and inform what action it proposed to take against errant officials.
As the government failed to provide such information on Tuesday, the judges were angry and asked the state to file a report on next date of hearing (December 11).
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The high court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Jayprakash Unecha alleging that hundreds of bogus ration cards were in existence in Pune and other parts of the state.
Earlier, the state had disclosed that there were altogether 11 lakh bogus ration cards in circulation. Reacting to this, the judges noted that the magnitude of the fraud was quite enormous.
Hearing another PIL, the HC had earlier told the chief secretary to file an affidavit giving details about mechanism it would adopt to prevent issue of bogus cards.