The Bombay high court on Tuesday suggested to the Maharashtra government to consider linking ration cards with the newly introduced Aadhar cards so as to weed out bogus and duplicate ration cards in the state.
A division bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and R D Dhanuka took a serious view of the issue of bogus ration cards and questioned the inaction on the part of the authorities.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Jayprakash Unecha two years back.
"Aren't two years enough to unravel the mystery of bogus ration cards?" the bench said, adding, the government was short of staff and vision.
"Will it not be a prudent approach in the matter to make it compulsory to produce the Aadhar card for the issuance of a new ration card? Why is the government not considering this? Unless you put a verification process in place, you cannot track the duplicate or bogus ration cards," Justice Khanwilkar said.
When additional public prosecutor Aruna Kamat Pai informed the court that the government was short-staffed, the bench said, "Link everything to the Aadhar card scheme and make one team to run it. No great changes need to be made. The state will have to only link both the cards via a software."
Directing the government to consider the link between the two cards, the court adjourned hearing of the PIL till next week.
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