The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to interfere with the government’s decision to ask traders along the Kanwar Yatra routes in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to mandatorily display QR codes and other identity details at their stalls.
The petitioners — Delhi University professor Apporvanand Jha and journalist Aakar Patel — had alleged that the move by the two BJP governments was aimed at religious profiling.
A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh refused to entertain the plea, saying the Yatra was in any case coming to an end and that the court was not inclined to go into the issues being argued.
“…Therefore, at this stage, all respective owners shall comply with the mandate of licence and registration certificate as required statutorily. We make it clear we are not going into the issue being argued. The application stands closed,” the court said.
On July 15, the bench had sought the response of the two states on the petition alleging that insistence on mandatory disclosure of identity details amounted to the religious profiling of the traders along the route of the July 11-August 9 Yatra.
The apex court had in an interim order last year expressly barred mandatory disclosure of the identity of traders as it would in turn reveal their religious beliefs.
Apporvanand and Patel had argued that the government directive, couched in the garb of “lawful licence requirements”, was a breach of privacy rights.
“Equating this requirement to display a normal-sized license with the directive to display names of owners, managers and other employees on billboards outside, or to not give eateries’ names which do not reflect the religious identity of the owner, are de hors (beyond the scope of) the licence requirements,” the petitioners had said.