An angry high court on Monday took the State government to task for its “irresponsible and callous attitude” in dealing with cases of malnutrition across the State. A bench, headed by Chief Justice Vikramjit Sen, took serious note of officers attached to the women and child welfare department being raided in alleged corruption cases. The State replied that those who had been raided were transferred and other officers appointed to monitor the supply of nutritious food to children under the centre-state integrated child development scheme.
The state said the contract for supplying nutritional powder has been decentralised with committees constituted under respective DCs to finalise the supply. “Don’t you want to be transparent? This is a serious problem”, the CJ said, questioning how one can eat when children are dying and foetuses in pregnant are weak. The court also took serious view of statistics by the state showing reduction in number of malnourished children when the petitioner pointed out that a child requires at least six months, to recover from malnourishment.
“In September 2011, at least 93 children have died, that is 3 per day on an average,” the petitioner argued. The state later said that by Tuesday, it would constitute a monitoring committee involving legal services authorities and others. The matter has been adjourned to Thursday.
Land identified
The state government on Monday submitted to the high court that a committee headed by the chief secretary has identified four areas in Bengaluru, for construction of quarters for judges. It has identified Arkavathy layout, Bhoopasandra, Nagawara and Haralakunte. The state said that apart from Arkavathy Layout, which is 13 km away from high court, the other three have legal hurdles with pending cases before the Supreme Court and High Court. The court granted two weeks to the state to further report on the matter.
Denotification withdrawn
The HC on Monday dismissed PIL by Congress MLA N.L. Narendra Babu, questioning denotification of a piece of land in Nandini Layout, after the government stated that it had withdrawn the denotification order. Mr Babu had filed the PIL alleging that the authorities, including the chief minister, denotified the land on October 19, 2009 to benefit an applicant.