Order:

This Writ Petition is filed to declare the action of the respondents

2 to 6 in not considering the case of the petitioner as cooking agent and on the other hand appointing the seventh respondent for implementing the Mid Day Meal Scheme in the Municipal High School, KASPA, Vizianagaram as illegal and arbitrary.

The case of the petitioner is that it is the organizer of Lakshmi Ganapathi Mahila Swayam Sahayaka Sangam of Vizianagaram Town and district and the petitioner group was appointed as cooking agency for implementing the Mid Day Meal Scheme in the Municipal High School, KASPA, Vizianagaram in the month of February 2012; in the month of December 2018, an NGO Nava Prayas came forward to take up the Mid Day Meal Scheme as a pilot project; during the implementation of Mid Day Meal Scheme by Nava Prayas NGO, the petitioner and their staff supplied and distributed the food to the students as helpers; after the withdrawal of Nava Prayas, the respondents 4 and 6 orally instructed the petitioner to prepare the food and supply to the students from 26.08.2019 to 08.09.2019, but the respondents did not pay any amount for the same; while so, a resolution is passed by the fifth respondent on 09.09.2019 appointing the seventh respondent for implementation of the Mid Day Meal Scheme, without issuing any notice and opportunity to the petitioner. Hence, the Writ Petition.

Learned counsel for the petitioner reiterated the contentions raised in the Writ Petition.

Learned Government Pleader appearing for the respondents submits that questioning the action of the State authorities in terminating the services of the Mid-Day Meal Implementing Agencies and Cooks etc., batch of Writ Petitions were filed in W.P.Nos.8037 of 2019 and batch, and this Court dismissed all the said Writ Petitions.

All the contentions raised in the present Writ Petition were also raised in the said batch of Writ Petitions including the plea that notices were not served on the petitioners therein before terminating their services and that the guidelines issued under G.O.Ms.No.94 dated 25.11.2002 were also not followed. This Court, by a common order dated 31.10.2019, dismissed all the said Writ Petitions by observing that no enforceable legal/statutory right is available to the petitioners therein to invoke Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

Apart from the said batch of Writ Petitions, this Court in Sri Kodanda Ramaswamy Oriental Educational Committee v. The

1 District Level Committee for Mid-Day Meal Scheme, Cuddapah and Rudramamba Mahila Dwacra Group, Shiva Nagar, Warangal v. Principal Secretary, Education Department, Government of

2 A.P. held that the petitioners under the Mid Day Meals Scheme do not have vested legal right which is enforceable by invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

In D. Ameena Bee v. Commissioner, Anantapur

3 Municipality, Anantapur , a Division Bench of this Court also held as follows.

1 2003(2) APLJ 323 2 2004(6) ALD 157 3 2005 (2) ALT 576

“3. That the predominant purpose of engaging the services of the implementing agencies is to entrust them with the work of cooking so that the scheme is properly implemented and the students derive the benefit of the scheme. It is meant for the welfare and benefit of the students. Even the proceedings of the District Collector, referred to hereinabove, does not confer any right upon anyone of the implementing agencies. The implementing agencies are not expected to convert this scheme into any profit making ventures. May be in the process, the actual personnel involved may derive semblance of wage, but the scheme is not intended to provide any employment to any individual or implementing agencies. In the circumstances, we are of the opinion that the proceedings of the District Collector approving the list of identified implementing agencies by the Municipality itself does not confer any indefeasible right upon any one of the implementing agencies or in