Calcutta HC Seeks West Bengal's Stand On Handing Over Kolkata Midday Meals To ISKCON

The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday, July 8, directed the West Bengal government to file an affidavit spelling out its stand on a proposal to hand over the cooking and distribution of midday meals in Kolkata schools to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), after the state told the court that no formal decision has been taken on the matter yet.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Partha Sarathi Chatterjee was hearing a public interest litigation that challenged the state government's reported plan to entrust the PM-POSHAN scheme, commonly known as the midday meal scheme, in Kolkata's government and government-aided schools to ISKCON. The petitioner argued that such a move would deprive students of eggs in their meals and strip thousands of self-help group (SHG) members, who currently cook and serve the food, of their livelihood.

Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Kalyan Banerjee told the court that the midday meal scheme was designed with two goals in mind: to provide nutritious food that would keep children in school, and to generate employment for women in self-help groups who cook and distribute the meals using raw material supplied by the government.

He submitted that handing the task over to ISKCON would defeat the second objective entirely, since the women currently employed under the scheme would lose their source of income. Banerjee further argued that eggs, an important source of protein for growing children, are typically excluded from meals prepared by ISKCON kitchens, and that any switch to the organisation would therefore also affect the nutritional content of what is served to students.

Banerjee told the bench that Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had informed the state assembly that ISKCON would provide midday meals under the PM-POSHAN scheme in 1,800 government-run and government-sponsored schools. He pointed out that the state government is the implementing authority for the centrally sponsored scheme, which is meant to ensure children receive cooked, nutritious food during school hours across all government and government-aided institutions.

When the bench asked whether any formal notification had been issued to this effect, Banerjee clarified that no such notification exists so far, but that the chief minister's statement on the floor of the House was enough to raise concern and warranted judicial scrutiny.

The court observed that the central notification of 2010, under which the midday meal scheme was first introduced, does not bar the participation of non-governmental organisations or other willing entities in implementing it. The bench, however, wanted to know whether any concrete steps had actually followed the chief minister's assembly statement.

Representing the state, Advocate General Surojit Nath Mitra told the court that nothing has been done so far to implement the proposal, and argued that the PIL was "based on assumptions" since there was no official order on the subject yet.

He explained that the scheme does contain a provision allowing for centralised kitchens in urban areas where individual schools lack the space to cook meals on their premises, and that such centralised kitchens can be run through a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

After hearing both sides, the bench directed the West Bengal government to place its position on record through an affidavit, and posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks.

Bench: Acting Chief Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Partha Sarathi Chatterjee

Inputs from PTI