HC serious over food poisoning cases, orders action against erring babus

Hyderabad: On Wednesday, the Telangana High Court Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao took serious note on the pathetic and precarious circumstances under which the students are studying in the Maganoor Zilla Parishad High School in Narayanpet district.

It may be recalled that many students fell ill after consuming stale food and they were admitted in Makthal hospital for “food poisoning”.

Chief Justice Alok Aradhe during the course of hearing expressed serious concern over the incident and said that the school education department officials should respond to such issues very fast as they also have kids who are studying in other schools and these kids in the government schools should also be taken care of properly by providing them with good food.

The CJ said, “This incident which is reported are of grave nature and strict urgent action need to be taken against the concerned officials, who are responsible for such a grave incident and the State should inform the steps to be taken by it to thwart such incidents in future”.

The Division Bench was adjudicating public interest litigation filed by Keethineedi Akhil Sri Guru Teja from Hyderabad, who sought a direction to the Central Govt. and the State Govt to implement midday meals ‘PM Poshan’ as per menu in all Governments schools till Class VIII.

Chikkudu Prabhakar, counsel for the petitioner informed the Court that the school education department officials didn’t take adequate steps to ensure such incidents do not occur again and no action was taken against the erring officials.

Moreover, Chief Justice said that going by the said incident, it is evident that the State Government is not serious on implementation of the Mid Day Meal programme in the government schools in a better way viz., the children studying in the government schools are deprived of nutritious food, thereby violating the National Food Security Act, 2013. The Chief Justice Alok Aradhe summoned Imran Khan, Addl. Advocate General to get information on this incident. Imran Khan appeared before the Chief Justice Bench after lunch hour and refuted the contentions of the petitioner and informed that the students fell ill not because of the food poisoning in the mid day meal programme, but by consuming “Kurkure” packets which they got from outside the school.

The Addl. A-G informed the Court that the State Government has suspended the Headmaster of the school along with other officials and also suspended the contract of the food supplier to the school and sought a week’s time to file a detailed report on the entire incident. The hearing was adjourned to December 2.