The Supreme Court on Tuesday warned of contempt of court action against states that fail to comply with its March order to provide ration cards to eight crore migrant workers registered on the eShram portal but not covered under the National Food Security Act, reported Bar and Bench.

The portal, maintained by the Union labour ministry, is a centralised database of all unorganised workers. It has 28.6 crore persons in its database, of whom 20.63 crore have ration cards.

On March 19, the top court told states and Union territories to provide ration cards within two months to the eight crore migrant workers missing from the National Food Security Act database.

A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah also noted that states and Union territories had failed to comply with the top court’s 2023 order, which gave them three months to provide migrant workers with ration cards.

On Tuesday, petitioners Anjali Bhardwaj, Harsh Mander and Jagdeep Chhokar told a division bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ahsanuddin Amanullah that the court’s March order was yet to be implemented.

“This is absolutely atrocious,” the bench responded. “We will call upon chief secretaries if it is not complied with by the next date,” said the bench. “Don’t ever think that we don’t know how to ensure compliance of our order. Remember this.”

Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Prashant Bhushan also said that only Tripura and Bihar had completed the verification of migrant workers. The process is underway in some states and others have not even started it yet, said Bhushan.

Bhushan also told the court that even if the cards were issued, some states were not giving ration to workers on the grounds that they had not received additional stock from the Central government.

“Who are these states to judge the Supreme Court’s order?” said the court. “Tell us who have not complied with. Four months have passed and nothing has been done.”

The court granted four weeks to states and Union territories to verify and issue ration cards to eight crore migrant workers.

It also directed the Central government to provide additional ration to states.

The matter has been posted for hearing next on August 27.