Apex court pulls up five states for not appointing food commissions

The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up governments of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Karnataka for not appointing state food commissions or failing to make them operational.

A Justice MB Lokur-headed bench, which had summoned the chief secretaries of ten states on the last hearing, directed that the state food commissions must be appointed as per the provisions of the National Food Security Act (NFSA). Food commissions have to be set-up for monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the law.

The apex court pulled up Madhya Pradesh government for following a new procedure — not specified under the law — to select members of the commission. The state is selecting members through advertisement.

“Under what provisions of law have you issued notification for selection of members of commission? Is it a new procedure Madhya Pradesh has been following or are you following the precedent?,” the bench asked the state counsel who said the procedure was transparent.

On Maharashtra’s submission that it was yet to appoint two members from the SC/ST community in the commission, the bench said it was extremely unfortunate to note that the deprived sections of the society were being treated this way.

“You are not able to find two appropriate persons from the SC/ST community in the entire state?” the bench asked.

Bihar government was pulled up for not nominating two members. “Do you think people of Bihar do not need food or do you think food for the people of Bihar is not important,” the bench asked its chief secretary who promised the selection would be complete in two weeks.

Andhra Pradesh informed the bench that it had notified the selection committee this month and the commission would be constituted within six months.

The chief secretary of Karnataka government, who failed to appear on Wednesday, was directed by the bench to appear before it on Thursday.