By Fida Fathima
With the Kanwar Yatra already in progress since Friday, the Uttar Pradesh government’s move to mandate QR code stickers for all eateries has sparked criticism, with many calling it a “camouflage order” that facilitates religious profiling and unfairly targets Muslim vendors.
The Uttar Pradesh government has mandated all eateries to display QR-code-enabled stickers linked to the Food Safety CONNECT App, a move officials describe as a digital reform to ensure hygiene, transparency, and accountability for the estimated four crore Kanwar Yatra pilgrims, which many eatery owners see as the last year’s “official version of the nameplate diktat.”
Under the Yogi Adityanath-led government’s directive, all eateries and food stalls along the 540-km Kanwar route from Meerut to Muzaffarnagar must display QR-code stickers, which, when scanned, reveal the owner’s name, registration number, address, and menu details.
Last years “nameplate diktat” refers to the controversial directive by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments requiring eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display nameplates revealing owners’ identities, where vigilante groups pressured vendors to display religious affiliations,disproportionately targeting Muslim‑owned businesses, which is ultimately stayed by the Supreme Court.
A fresh application has already been filed in the Supreme Court by Professor Apoorvanand, seeking a stay on all directives mandating or facilitating public disclosure of the ownership or employee identity of food vendors along the Kanwar Yatra routes, arguing that such directions violate the Court’s interim order from last year, which held that sellers cannot be compelled to reveal their identities.
The plea argues that the directive to reveal religious, caste identities couched under the garb of “lawful license requirements” is a breach of privacy rights.
“The requisite license is a self-contained certificate, which although reveals the name of the owner, is displayed inside the premises at a place where it may be accessed. Equating this requirement to display a normal-sized license with the directive to display name of owner, manager and other employees on billboards outside, or to not give eateries names which do not reflect the religious identity of the owner are de hors the license requirements,” read the plea.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.