The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notices to Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and asked them to respond in a week on a plea challenging government directives that require food vendors along the Kanwar Yatra route to display QR code stickers on their banners. These QR codes allow pilgrims to scan and instantly access details about the ownership of these stalls.
A bench comprising Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh listed the matter for further hearing next Tuesday after the states sought more time to respond. Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand’s Deputy Advocate General, Jatinder Kumar Sethi, requested two weeks to file replies, but Senior Advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for the petitioners, opposed the request, highlighting that the matter is urgent as the annual Kanwar Yatra will conclude in about 10 days.
The plea filed by Professor Apoorvanand, has urged the top court to immediately put a stop to these directives, arguing that forcing vendors to publicly reveal their names and identities goes against an interim order passed by the Supreme Court last year and had made it clear that no one could be compelled to disclose such information in this manner.
The professor claims that the new QR code rule is nothing but an attempt to bypass that protection. He believes the move is designed to single out certain food vendors based on their religion and could deepen existing fault lines along the busy pilgrim route.
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“This entire idea of putting QR codes that reveal owners’ details is just a new cover for the same discriminatory profiling that this Hon’ble Court had stayed earlier,” the application says.
The plea pointed out that while eateries do need valid licenses which has owner’s name and these are meant to be displayed inside the shop, not splashed across hoardings and banners for all to see. “Putting personal details out in the open could endanger small vendors, especially those from minority communities, and may even provoke mob violence,” the plea stated.
Professor Apoorvanand argues that the real motive behind this drive is not consumer safety but religious polarisation. “What else explains a directive that basically outs a person’s faith and caste to every passerby under the garb of ‘license compliance’?” the petition stated.
The application contends that disguising these directives as lawful licence requirements amounts to an infringement of the vendors’ right to privacy. It argues that forcing food sellers to display the names of owners, managers, or employees through banners or QR codes or compelling them to adopt shop names that reveal the religious identity of their proprietors goes well beyond what any food safety or licensing regulation legitimately requires.
The matter will now be heard again next Tuesday.
