NEW DELHI: The Uttar Pradesh government, in its reply filed before the Supreme Court on Thursday, said that the directives issued by it to display shop names, numbers, and their employees’ names were aimed at ensuring public safety, order, larger transparency, informed choice of food of Kanwarias they eat during the Yatra, keeping in mind their religious sentiments.”These directives aimed at ensuring public safety and order during the Yatra given the large number of participants and potential for communal tensions,” the UP government told the apex court, in its reply copy, accessed by this newspaper.The top court on July 22, while passing the interim order staying the UP, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh government’s orders directive asking eateries on the Kanwariya Yatra route to put the names, addresses and mobile numbers of their owners and staff, had asked them to file their replies in the case.The court’s two-judge bench, led by Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice S V N Bhatti, passed the order after hearing the pleas filed by an NGO, Association For Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), All India Trinamool Congress leader, Mahua Moitra and Prof. Apoorvanand. They had moved the Supreme Court challenging these state governments’s order.The apex court is scheduled to hear the matter on Friday.Filing the reply in the top court, the UP government opposed the petitions challenging it’s diktat regarding display of name of shop owners on Kanwar route and had urged it to reject the same
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