Supreme Court to hear plea against Kanwar Yatra route order today

Two more petitions have also been filed in the apex court challenging the move in the two states. While the plea by political commentator Apoorvanand and activist Aakar Patel sought the court’s intervention to ask the states to withdraw the orders, the petition filed by TMC MP Mahua Moitra accused the Uttar Pradesh government of “targeting Muslim-owned businesses”.

In their petition, Apoorvanand and Patel said the “impugned directives encourage discrimination on grounds of caste and religion and cannot be seen to serve any ‘legitimate purpose’.”

“These directives promote discrimination solely based on religious and caste identity, as they do not require the display of food items being served or a statement that no non-vegetarian or non-satvik food is being served, but only the display of religious or caste identity explicit in one’s name,” the plea said. This, they argued, “directly breaches” Article 15 of the Constitution.

The plea said the directions promote untouchability and compromise the privacy of the shop owners and their employees, exposing them to danger of being targeted.

In her petition, Moitra accused the Uttar Pradesh government of creating “conditions for economic boycott of Muslims”.

“Since June 2023, the Respondent No. 1 (State of UP) continued to empower and embolden the anti-social elements by actively targeting Muslim-owned businesses based on fabricated and malicious information circulated by the anti-social elements. The Respondent No. 1, through acts of commission and omission, created conditions for the complete economic boycott of Muslim minorities on the pretext of their ‘impure’ dietary choices,” the petition said.

Her plea said that “in forcing the disclosure of the names of proprietors and even those of their staff, on the stated ground of respecting pilgrims’ dietary choices, makes it clear that ‘dietary choices’ is a pretext, or a proxy, for the compelled disclosure of personal — and, in this case, religious — identity, through the disclosure of names. The upshot of this is to create a socially-enforced economic boycott on Muslim shop-owners and workers, and the loss of their livelihoods”.

The State’s affirmative obligation to maintain public order. The State cannot outsource or abdicate its obligations by requiring citizens to give up their rights to free speech in order that public order is maintained, the petition said. This inverts the relationship between the State and the citizen, and amounts to giving in to the “heckler’s veto”.

The plea said the directions impose unreasonable restrictions on business activities of eatery owners and food-sellers, infringing upon their freedom to carry on any occupation, trade or business under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution. The orders are also manifestly arbitrary, disproportionate, and violate the right to equality, the petition said.