HC raps Govt for not taking action on bogus ration cards

As the Government sought time to provide the required information, Justices A M Khanvilkar and Mridula Bhatkar pulled up the State authorities, saying sufficient time had been given to them.

"Are you going to wait till District Collectors file their responses?," they asked.

Taking a serious view of existence of bogus ration cards in Maharashtra, the HC had on last hearing asked the Government to proceed against officers responsible for the illegal practice failing which it threatened to order a top officer to take action in a time-bound manner.

The Court had asked the Government to give a district-wise break up of fake ration cards and inform what action it proposed to take against errant officials.

As the Government failed to provide such information today, the Judges were angry and asked the State to file a report on next date of hearing (December 11).

The HC was hearing a PIL filed by Jayprakash Unecha alleging that hundreds of bogus ration cards were in existence in Pune and other parts of the State.

Earlier, the State had disclosed that there were altogether 11 lakh bogus ration cards in circulation. Reacting to this, the Judges noted that the magnitude of the fraud was quite enormous.

Hearing another PIL, the HC had earlier told the Chief Secretary to file an affidavit giving details about mechanism it would adopt to prevent issue of bogus cards.