Justice Indira Banerjee of the High Court today directed the state government to file an affidavit within three weeks. The case will come up for hearing after four weeks.

Chief Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty had issued an order on November 11, 2009, that family ration cards would be distributed, replacing the individual ration cards. The number of family members and their names would be mentioned in the family ration cards, said the order.

Following this the government had asked the block development officers (BDOs) of various districts to scrutinise the families before the distribution of new ration cards. The BDOs had already started the preparatory work.

Priyabrata Ganguly and other ration card holders residing in Hooghly had filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court in January alleging that ration card holders would face difficulties if family ration cards were issued instead of individual ones.

Advocate Shaktinath Mukherjee, counsel of the petitioner, pleaded that the government should have issued a gazetted notification for distribution of family ration cards. The administrative order of the Chief Secretary could not be issued without amending the Public Distribution (Maintenance and Control) Order 2003, he said.

Mukherjee said that it is mandatory to submit the ration cards for admission in schools and to secure voter ID cards. The individual ration cards served various purposes for any person, said Mukherjee. So the present ration card holders would face difficulties if the individual cards are cancelled.

He also said that there was no guideline for deletion of names in the family ration card in case anybody dies.

Sayeed Nazmul Hussain, counsel of the state government, on the other hand said that no valid ration card holder would suffer due to the family cards.