SC stays directive requiring eateries on Kanwar Yatra route to display owners’ names

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed directives by authorities in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand requiring eateries along the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage route to display their owners’ names outside the establishments, reported Live Law.

The bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti passed the interim order while issuing notice on a batch of petitions challenging the directives. The court said, however, that the eateries must display information about the type of food they are serving.

The court will hear the matter next on Friday.

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and the Association of Protection of Civil Rights had filed petitions challenging the directives, while Delhi University professor Apoorvanand Jha and activist Aakar Patel had also jointly filed a similar plea.

The petitioners contended that the directives would facilitate discrimination on the grounds of religion and caste, and that they violate fundamental rights.

The directives applied to the proprietors of dhabas, food stalls and hotels along the pilgrimage route in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar and Uttarakhand’s Haridwar.

In 2023, Yashveer Maharaj, a priest from an ashram in Muzaffarnagar, had demanded that Muslim owners of establishments display their names on their businesses.

During the Kanwar Yatra, devotees, called Kanwariyas, walk hundreds of kilometres to collect water from the Ganga near Haridwar and carry it back to their home states to offer at temples.

The devotees...

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