State may face contempt over malnutrition

The Bombay high court on Wednesday warned the state government that if appropriate steps are not taken to implement the court order to provide wholesome and healthy food to tribal areas and ashramshalas, the court would then issue contempt notices to the secretaries of all the departments concerned. The court has sought a report on the implementation of its orders by November 25.

A division bench of Justice V.M. Kanade and Justice Swapna Joshi — while hearing a bunch of PILs regarding malnutrition among children in the Melghat region of Vidarbha and other tribal areas — also expressed dissatisfaction over the Maharashtra government’s lack of sensitivity towards addressing the issue of the increasing number of malnutrition deaths in tribal areas of the state.

Various individuals and NGOs have filed the petitions from 2007 onwards, raising issues of health problems in tribal and adivasi areas, and in 2011 the high court had also taken suo-motu cognisance of reports related to deaths due to malnutrition in tribal areas.

Last month, too, when these petitions were being heard, one of the petitioners showed the court a reply received through an RTI plea, which said that over 17,000 persons, including women and children, had died due to malnutrition in the state in the last one year. The court was also informed that 283 persons had died of the same cause in the Melghat region during 2015-16 and an additional 83 from January 2016 to July 2016.

The bench directed the state’s chief secretary to personally look into the issue and inform the court about what steps would be taken to ensure that wholesome and healthy food is provided to tribal areas and children and ashramshalas.

Justice Kanade said, “We direct the chief secretary to personally look into the issue and go through all the court orders and then inform us about what the government will do to implement the orders.”

In the past as well, the petitioners had informed the court that there had been 18,000 juvenile deaths, including stillbirths, in 2015-16. The bench on Wednesday observed that the orders and directions passed in the case in the past eight years have unfortunately remained only on paper and no progress has been made. The bench said that the problems appear to have been addressed at superficial levels, but the core issue has not yet been resolved.

The judges said that they were hoping that the government would take the issue seriously now, or else it would be forced to direct the secretaries of the departments concerned to remain personally present in court and would initiate contempt proceedings against them.