Dipika Jagatram Sahani v. Union of India
Background
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Anganwadi Centres across India, which provide supplementary nutrition to pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children under six under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme and the National Food Security Act, 2013, were shut down. The petitioner filed a PIL under Article 32 seeking directions to reopen all Anganwadi Centres, resume hot cooked meals and take-home rations as mandated by law, and ensure growth monitoring of children affected by the disruption.
Decision Breakdown
The Court reviewed responses from the Union and several States/Union Territories, finding wide variation in how nutrition support was being delivered during the shutdown (some states substituted inadequate or non-compliant alternatives, such as a Gujarat sweet product, instead of providing nutritionally prescribed rations). It held that it is the State's constitutional obligation (Article 47 and prior directions of the Court in the PUCL right-to-food litigation) to ensure children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers actually receive nutritional support, not merely that schemes exist on paper. The Court directed that Anganwadi Centres located outside COVID containment zones be reopened by 31 January 2021 unless the State Disaster Management Authority specifically decided otherwise, that centres within containment zones remain closed only while the containment continues, that all states meet the nutritional standards prescribed in Schedule II of the National Food Security Act, and that a complaint redressal and supervision mechanism be established in every district.
Lesson Learnt
Welfare entitlements like child and maternal nutrition are treated by the courts as enforceable rights flowing from the Constitution and statute, not mere policy choices, even during an emergency like a pandemic, the State cannot indefinitely suspend statutory nutrition guarantees without a reasoned, area-specific justification.