The Supreme Court on Monday said that after two weeks it will hear a petition seeking compensation for deaths on account of denial of food grains under the Public Distribution System (PDS) allegedly for not linking Aadhaar cards to ration cards. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud agreed to hear the petition filed by the mother and sister of 11-year-old Santoshi, the Jharkhand girl who died after the family stopped getting their rations as their Aadhaar wasn’t linked to PDS. The bench also asked their counsel Colin Gonsalves to provide a copy of the petition to the Centres’ advocate. The court, however, did not issue any formal notice. The petitioners wanted criminal prosecution and departmental proceedings against officials found guilty in the matter leading to the deaths. The plea said similar deaths had taken place in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh too. A five-judge Constitution bench of the apex court is currently hearing a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act.
