Claims of development and high per capita income contradict high BPL population: Supreme Court

A view of the Supreme Court of India, in New Delhi.
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (March 19, 2025) questioned the claims of high development rate and per capita income when certain States have about 70% of their population living below poverty line, and wondered whether distribution schemes of subsidised essential food grains really reached the poor in the country.

“There are States which utilise or project the development card, saying our per capita income is high, we have progressed so well, but we find that 70% of their population are declared below poverty line (BPL)… How can these two factors go together? There is an inherent contradiction if 70% people are BPL and still you claim a high per capita income,” Justice Surya Kant, heading a Bench, observed orally.

The apex court wondered whether the subsidised ration system, meant to provide food security to the deserving poor, was merely a ploy by governments to garner popularity.

The court was hearing petitions seeking ration cards for migrant workers to ensure food security.

The court had been passing a slew of directions, right from the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, to authorities to undertake welfare measures, including distributing ration cards to migrant workers registered with the e-Shram portal.

Advocates Prashant Bhushan and Cheryl D’Souza, appearing for activists Anjali Bhardwaj, Harsh Mander, and Jagdeep Chhokar, said the contradiction arose from the growing level of inequality.

“The level of inequality has gone up so much that a few people are worth lakhs of crores while a vast majority survive on ₹30 and ₹40 a day,” Mr. Bhushan said.

Justice Kant asked whether the issuance of ration cards identifying the beneficiaries for distribution of food grains too were dictated by political considerations.

“Unfortunately, the Executive functions at different levels. By the time ration reaches the poor, so many things would have happened. Poor families continue to remain poor,” Justice Kant observed.

The court said corruption and mismanagement of the Public Distribution System must not be a ground to discourage its implementation. “The only thing to do is to ensure that ration reaches the poor,” Justice Kant noted.

The court said the poor have a right to access at least two square meals a day in terms of their fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.

“I have not closed my contact with my roots… That is why I keep enquiring into how the ration system works,” Justice Kant explained.

He said it was an extremely genuine concern that the poor in the country were provided ration at subsidised rates.

Appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati intervened to stress that the Union government was duty-bound under the National Food Security Act to provide food grains. She said the coverage under the Act was 81.35%. There was additional coverage for 11 crore people under the Anganwadi scheme, and further coverage for another 22 crore people.

Mr. Bhushan said that the country had witnessed unprecedented unemployment after the pandemic.

“After COVID, a lot of migrant labourers could not find work. They are all in need of food security. Ration cards need to be distributed to them by the States. Once this exercise is done by the States, the Centre has to release ration supplies to the poor. Otherwise, it would be a violation of Article 21 and even amount to discrimination… Besides, Census has also not been done,” Mr. Bhushan submitted.

The Supreme Court, in an earlier hearing, had taken strong exception to the delays in the implementation of its April 2023 order to provide ration cards to about eight crore migrant workers registered on the eShram portal but not covered under the National Food Security Act. The court was then informed that the portal had 28.6 crore registrants. Of this, 20.63 crore were registered on ration card data.

Mr. Bhushan had argued that there could be more than 10 crore workers left outside the protective umbrella of the Food Safety Act as the statistics were based on the 2011 census. The population would have increased since then. The court had underscored the duty of a welfare state to include each and every migrant worker on the ration card roll expeditiously.