The judiciary in India has become habituated to usurping the role of the executive and seeking to run ministries, government departments, investigation agencies and the police. It seems the armed forces are the only institution that the judiciary has not yet stepped in to berate, instruct and supervise! In recent months, the judiciary has pronounced on matters ranging from euthanasia and caste violence (honour killings) to tax evasion, corruption and even nutrition and food management. Though, admittedly, the issues taken up by the courts are important and matters of public concern, and win popular acclaim for the judiciary when it flags its concerns, it is not clear how the judiciary can arrogate to itself the roles and responsibilities of the legislature and the executive. Not long ago the Supreme Court decided to express its opinion on the functioning of the public distribution system and instructed the Union government to distribute surplus food grains to the poor free of cost. The judiciary did not appreciate the response of the Union minister for agriculture, Sharad Pawar, who argued that while the suggestion is understandable, it was not a practical policy option. His ministry had to ultimately file an affidavit in the court explaining how the government planned to induct more subsidised grains into the notoriously leaky and inefficient public distribution system, almost humouring the quixotic.
The apex court has now once again come forward with an equally bizarre instruction, asking the government to distribute five million tonnes of additional food grains to the poor in 150 of the most poverty-intensive districts. This, the court says, must be done under the supervision of a committee appointed by it. The court has taken note of rotting food grains, a phenomenon caused by inadequate space for holding stocks, and has asked that these stocks be given away. Going a step further, the court has found fault with the size of the monthly grain quota of 35 kg per household, irrespective of family size, as also with the identification of the poor on the basis of income, rather than nutrition level.
Regardless of the merits of these arguments, none of these ought to be defined by the upholders of law. It is not judicial diktat that must determine the size of food stocks, their use and the criteria for their distribution. While, on the one hand, this order was issued days after the government itself decided to wind down its food stocks and increase supply through PDS, the order also disregards the government’s plea that the states were unable to distribute even the previously allotted quantities as is evident from the fact that the actual off take last year was just around 40 per cent of the additional allocation. Thus, the court seems to have no regard for administrative and other problems associated with food management and flawed food policies. Rather, in a reversal of a Mary Antoinette kind of pronouncement, the courts have declared everyone should be fed! Of course there is the minor matter of the limited coverage of PDS, but may be that will also change through judicial diktat!