• durgesh dubey
• 26 Jul, 2024

court

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that shopkeepers along the Kanwar Yatra route could voluntarily display the names of their owners and employees outside their premises. However, the court's interim order staying the directives issued by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments will remain in effect.

The Supreme Court stated that this stay order would continue until August 5, the date of the next hearing. The court also instructed the governments of Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh to file their responses within a week. "For voluntarily displaying names there is no issue. Our order says that they cannot be forced to put out owner names and employee names outside the dhaba," remarked a bench comprising Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti.

During the hearing, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Uttar Pradesh, argued that rules under the Food and Safety Standards Act require every food seller to display the names of the owners. In response, the court said, "Then let it be enforced all across the state... not only in certain areas. File a counter showing it has been enforced all over."

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Trinamool Congress's Mahua Moitra, noted that for the past 60 years, there has been no mandate to display the names of shop owners during the Kanwar Yatra. He suggested that there would be no harm in allowing the yatra this year without enforcing such rules.