Poulomi Pavini Shukla vs. Union Of India

ITEM NO.25 COURT NO.1 SECTION PIL-W

S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS

Writ Petition (Civil) No.503/2018

POULOMI PAVINI SHUKLA Petitioner(s)

VERSUS

UNION OF INDIA & ORS. Respondent(s)

(With IA No.142314/2022 - APPROPRIATE ORDERS/DIRECTIONS, IA No.22089/2020 - APPROPRIATE ORDERS/DIRECTIONS, IA No.66125/2021 - EXEMPTION FROM FILING AFFIDAVIT, IA No.143419/2022 - EXEMPTION FROM FILING O.T., IA No.75988/2019 - EXEMPTION FROM FILING O.T. and IA No.64218/2021 - GRANT OF INTERIM RELIEF)

Date : 15-09-2023 These matters were called on for hearing today.

CORAM :

HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE J.B. PARDIWALA HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MANOJ MISRA

For Petitioner(s)	Petitioner-in-person
For Respondent(s)	Mr. Vikramjit Banerjee, ASG<br>Mr. Gurmeet Singh Makker, AOR<br>Ms. Vaishali Verma, Adv.<br>Mr. Chinmayee Chandra, Adv.<br>Mr. Parthiv Goswami, Adv.<br>Mr. Prashant Rawat, Adv.
	Mr. Shreekant Neelappa Terdal, AOR<br>Mr. Mukesh Kr.verma, Adv.

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Mr. Tadimalla Bhaskar Gowtham, Adv. Dr. Arun Kumar Yadav, Adv. Mr. Sahil Bhalaik, AOR Mr. Tushar Giri, Adv. Mr. Siddharth Anil Khanna, Adv. Mr. Abhimanyu Tewari, AOR Ms. Eliza Bar, Adv. Mr. Sumeer Sodhi, AOR Ms. Shreya Singh, Adv. Mr. Surjendu Sankar Das, AOR Ms. Ruchira Gupta, Adv. Mr. Deep Narayan Sankar, Adv. Ms. Harshita Sharma, Adv. Ms. Pooja Tripathi, Adv. Mr. Shekhar Raj Sharma, DAG Mr. Paras Dutta, Adv. Mr. Samar Vijay Singh, AOR Mr. Keshav Mittal, Adv. Ms. Sabarni Som, Adv. Mr. Abhinav Mukerji, AOR Mrs. Bihu Sharma, Adv. Mr. Mohit Prasad, Adv. Mr. Tapesh Kumar Singh, AOR Mr. Aditya Pratap Singh, Adv. Mr. Priyanshu Malik, Adv. Mr. V.N. Raghupathy, AOR Mr. Manendra Pal Gupta, Adv. Mr. Md. Apzal Ansri, Adv. Mr. M. Bangaraswamy, Adv. Mr. S. Spandana Reddy, Adv. Mr. Dhanesh Ieshdhan, Adv. Mr. Nishe Rajen Shonker, AOR Mrs. Anu K. Joy, Adv.

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Mr. Alim Anvar, Adv. Mr. Shrirang B. Varma, Adv. Mr. Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Adv. Mr. Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, AOR Mr. Bharat Bagla, Adv. Mr. Sourav Singh, Adv. Mr. Aditya Krishna, Adv. Mr. Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, AOR Mr. Karun Sharma, Adv. Mr. Ranjan Mukherjee, AOR Mr. Siddhesh Shirish Kotwal, AOR Mr. Tejasvi Gupta, Adv. Mr. Pawan Upadhyay, Adv. Ms. K. Enatoli Sema, AOR Ms. Limayinla Jamir, Adv. Mr. Amit Kumar Singh, Adv. Ms. Chubalemla Chang, Adv. Mr. Prang Newmai, Adv. Dr. Manish Singhvi, Sr. Adv. Ms. Shubhangi Agarwal, Adv. Mr. Apurv S., Adv. Mr. Milind Kumar, AOR Mr. Raghvendra Kumar, AOR Mr. Anand Kumar Dubey, Adv. Ms. Harsha Sharma, Adv. Mr. Simanta Kumar, Adv. Mr. Amit Anand Tiwari, AAG Mr. Sabarish Subramanian, AOR Mr. Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Adv. Ms. Devyani Gupta, Adv. Mr. C. Kranthi Kumar, Adv. Mr. Naman Dwivedi, Adv. Mr. Danish Saifi, Adv.

Mr. Rajiv Kumar Choudhry, AOR Mr. Sriharsha Peechara, Adv. Mr. Duvvuri Subrahmanya Bhanu, Adv. Ms. Pallavi, Adv. Ms. Kriti Sinha, Adv. Mr. Shuvodeep Roy, AOR Mr. Deepayan Dutta, Adv. Mr. Jatinder Kumar Bhatia, AOR Mr. Krishnam Mishra, Adv. Mr. Param Kumar Mishra, Adv. Mr. Bhanu Mishra, Adv. Ms. Muskan Surana, Adv. Ms. Astha Sharma, AOR Ms. G. Indira, AOR Mr. Harnaman Singh, Adv. Mr. Ashwini Kumar, Adv. Ms. Kamakshi S. Mehlwal, AOR Ms. Pallavi Parmar, Adv. Mr. Abhik Kumar, Adv. Ms. Geetanjali Mehlwal, Adv. Ms. Jyoti Mendiratta, AOR Mr. Aravindh S., AOR Mr. Abbas, Adv. Mr. Ashok Basoya, Adv. Mr. Sandeep Kumar Jha, Adv. Ms. Shruti Jose, Adv.

UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R

1 There has been no compliance by the Union of India of the direction contained in the order dated 1 May 2023.

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• 2 Mr Vikramajit Banerjee, Additional Solicitor General states that he has just taken over the brief and would require an extension of time to seek instructions.
• 3 In the previous order of this Court, among other things, the Additional Solicitor General was directed to take instructions on whether the benefit of schemes which were provided for children orphaned during the Covid-19 pandemic can be extended to all orphaned children.
• 4 Apart from the above direction, it is necessary to note that Section 2(d) of the Act defines the expression 'child belonging to disadvantaged group' as follows:

"(d) "child belonging to disadvantaged group" means a child with disability or a child belonging to the Scheduled Caste, the Scheduled Tribe, the socially and educationally backward class or such other group having disadvantage owing to social, cultural, economical, geographical, linguistic, gender or such other factor, as may be specified by the appropriate Government, by notification;

• 5 The expression "such other factor" in Section 2(d) may take colour from the previous expressions so as to include children who are orphaned. Hence, it would be open to the appropriate governments as defined in Section 2(a) to define the expression "child belonging to disadvantaged group" to include orphaned children, specially those suffering from social and educational backwardness.

• 6 The Court has been apprised of the fact that such a notification has been issued both by the Delhi Government and by the Gujarat Government. We direct the Union of India to consider this aspect as well when it responds to the earlier order of this Court.

• 7 All the State governments shall also file their affidavits on the above aspect.

• 8 List the Petition on 16 October 2023.

(CHETAN KUMAR) (RENU BALA GAMBHIR) A.R.-cum-P.S. COURT MASTER