Kanwar Yatra: Plea in Supreme Court seeks withdrawal of QR Code identity requirement for eatery owners

An application has been moved before Supreme Court of India to direct the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to immediately withdraw all QR code-based identification mandates or any other mechanisms that result in disclosure of owner identity or religious profiling of vendors along the Kanwar Yatra route.

The application moved by Apoorvanand Jha in a writ petition pending from last year, also seeks a stay on all further actions taken pursuant to directives (whether oral, written or digital, including via QR codes) requiring or facilitating public disclosure of ownership/employee identity of food vendors along Kanwar Yatra routes in the States of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Last year, the Supreme Court had stayed the enforcement of directives issued by the state government of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, directing the shop owners along the Kanwar Yatra route to display their names.

As per the applicant, despite the above orders, the State of Uttar Pradesh and other authorities are circumventing the stay by reintroducing the same directive stating that, ‘As in the previous year, the name of the operator should be clearly displayed at each shop’ under the garb of public safety and maintenance of law and order.

"..vague and overbroad directives deliberately mix up the licensing requirements with the other unlawful demand to display religious identity, and leave scope for violent enforcement of such a manifestly arbitrary demand both by vigilante groups and by authorities on the ground", the application filed through AOR Akriti Chaubey submits.

Accordingly, a direction has been sought for the states to file affidavits explaining how current mandates do not violate the Court’s earlier stay or constitutional rights.

Court was told last year that while the impugned orders had been issued to ensure that the Kanwariyas are served vegetarian food, maintaining hygienic standards, the same should be issued by competent authority under the FSSAI Act, 2006.

"To require the vendors to display the name of the owners and the staff in his establishment cannot by itself be termed as a measure to ensure vegetarian or shudh sakahari food...the dietary choice of the yatris can certainly be ensured by requiring only shakahari food to be served on the route of the Kanwarias...", Supreme Court had noted in its order.

In an affidavit, the state government had maintained that the directive was issued solely in the interest of ensuring a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra, in which more than 4.07 Crores of Kanwariyas participate annually.

Case Title: APOORVANAND JHA & ANR. vs. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.