Married Daughters Cannot Be Excluded from Fair Price Shop Dependent Quota, Rules Supreme Court

A Division Bench of the Supreme Court holds that excluding married daughters from compassionate allotment of fair price shops violates Articles 14 and 15(1) of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has held that a government order excluding married daughters from the definition of “family” for the purpose of compassionate allotment of fair price shops is unconstitutional. In Kulsum Nisha v. State of U.P. & Ors. (2026 INSC 617), a Division Bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe quashed orders passed by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, the Deputy Commissioner, and the Allahabad High Court, all of which had denied the appellant a fair price shop dealership solely because she was a married daughter. The Court applied purposive construction to read the expression “daughters” in Clause 2(p) of the Uttar Pradesh Essential Commodities (Regulation of Sale and Distribution Control) Order, 2016 as including married daughters who establish dependency and satisfy all other eligibility conditions. Two Division Bench decisions of the Allahabad High Court that had taken the contrary view were expressly overruled.

How the Dispute Reached the Court

On 27 October 2012, a fair price shop at village panchayat Aariyawan, District Amethi, was allotted to Smt. Badrun Nisha. She was the mother of the appellant, Kulsum Nisha. On 4 March 2024, Badrun Nisha died, leaving the appellant as the sole earning member of a household that included four sisters, one of whom is visually impaired. The appellant had continued to reside with her mother and sisters even after her own marriage.

The Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Tiloi, attached the shop on the day of the dealer's death. On 19 March 2024, the appellant applied for allotment of the shop as a dependent. By an order dated 16 July 2024, the SDM rejected the application on a single ground: the appellant was a married daughter and therefore fell outside the definition of “family” under Paragraph IV(10) of the State Government's G.O. No. 6 of 2019. The Deputy Commissioner affirmed that rejection on 7 January 2025.

The appellant challenged both orders before the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench. The learned Single Judge acknowledged a contrary view taken by the Bombay High Court in Ranjana Murlidhar Anerao v. State of Maharashtra & Ors. and described the question as one of seminal importance affecting the rights of married daughters. However, the Single Judge held that he was bound by two Division Bench decisions of the same court — Smt. Kusumlata and Saida Begum — and dismissed the writ petition on 5 March 2025. The High Court did grant a certificate under Article 134-A of the Constitution, certifying that the matter involved a substantial question of law of general importance. That certificate gave rise to Civil Appeal No. 7667 of 2025 before the Supreme Court.

The Statutory Framework and the Contested Exclusion

The Uttar Pradesh Government issued the 2016 Order in exercise of powers under Section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. Clause 2(p) of the 2016 Order defines “family” to include, among others, “unmarried, legally separated, and widowed daughters.” Clause 7(2) empowers the State Government to prescribe eligibility conditions for persons entitled to run a fair price shop, without specifying any marital status criterion.

In pursuance of the 2016 Order, the State issued G.O. No. 6 of 2019. Paragraph IV of the G.O. sets out essential qualifications for selection in rural areas. Sub-Paragraph 5 requires an applicant to be a local resident. Sub-Paragraph 10 defines “family” by reference to the 2016 Order's definition — a definition that lists unmarried, legally separated, and widowed daughters but makes no mention of married daughters. Paragraph V of the G.O. governs the procedure for allotment under the dependent quota after the death of a dealer and requires the dependent to satisfy the eligibility conditions in Paragraph IV.

The State of Uttar Pradesh defended the exclusion on two grounds: first, that the classification between unmarried, judicially separated, widowed, and married daughters was a reasonable classification; and second, that a married daughter, having shifted to her in-laws' house in a different village, would ordinarily not satisfy the local residence requirement under Sub-Paragraph 5.

The Court's Constitutional Analysis

The Court framed the sole issue as whether the exclusion of married daughters from the definition of “family” was constitutionally sustainable. It began with the established two-pronged test for reasonable classification under Article 14: the classification must rest on an intelligible differentia, and that differentia must have a rational nexus with the object of the statute.

The object of the dependent quota, the Court found, is to provide immediate financial relief to the family of a deceased dealer facing hardship and to ensure continuity in the public distribution system. The relevant considerations for eligibility are dependency, financial need, residence, and the ability to discharge the obligations of a dealership. Against that object, the Court held that marital status bears no rational nexus to any of these considerations.

The Court rejected the assumption embedded in the exclusion — that upon marriage a daughter ceases to be a member of, or dependent upon, her parental family. It held that such an assumption is constitutionally impermissible. Marriage neither extinguishes the bond between a daughter and her parental family nor furnishes a valid basis to presume absence of dependency. The Court pointed to the asymmetry in the scheme: a son remains within the definition of “family” regardless of his marital status, while a daughter is excluded solely because she is married. That distinction, the Court held, is founded on a gender-based stereotype that a daughter upon marriage becomes a member of another family and loses all ties with her natal family — a presumption incompatible with the constitutional guarantee of equality.

The Court also rejected the State's residence argument. Residence is an independent eligibility criterion under Paragraph IV(5) of the G.O. Whether an applicant satisfies it must be determined on the facts of each case. A blanket exclusion of all married daughters cannot be justified on the speculative assumption that every married daughter necessarily resides elsewhere. The Court held that

The Court concluded that the exclusion of married daughters from the definition of “family” fails the test of reasonable classification, is manifestly arbitrary, lacks any intelligible differentia having a rational nexus with the object of the scheme, and violates Articles 14 and 15(1) of the Constitution.

Purposive Construction Rather Than Striking Down

Having found the exclusion unconstitutional, the Court turned to the question of remedy. It considered whether the words “unmarried, legally separated and widowed daughters” in Clause 2(p) of the 2016 Order should be struck down or read purposively to include married daughters.

The Court applied the doctrine of purposive construction, holding that when the language of a provision is reasonably capable of more than one meaning, a court is obliged to prefer the construction that promotes the provision's purpose and avoids an arbitrary or unjust result. It relied on Shailesh Dhairyawan v. Mohan Balkrishan Lulla (2016) 3 SCC 619 in support of this approach.

The Court identified several reasons for reading the enumeration as illustrative rather than exhaustive. First, there is no express language of exclusion in Clause 2(p); the listed categories describe daughters who, by remaining in or returning to the natal household, are most visibly placed in a position of dependency. Second, Clause 2(p) itself separately defines one category of family members as “adult children who are fully dependent on the head of the family” without any qualification of marital status or gender. Third, the categories of unmarried, legally separated, and widowed daughters share a common functional characteristic — they remain or have returned to their natal family — and a married daughter who has not departed from the natal household and is dependent upon it shares that same characteristic. Fourth, to read the words literally would produce a result inconsistent with Articles 14 and 15(1).

The Court therefore held that the expression “daughters” in Clause 2(p) of the 2016 Order must be read to include a married daughter, provided she establishes dependency on the deceased dealer, furnishes a dependency certificate and No Objection Certificates from other adult family members, is a local resident, and satisfies all other eligibility conditions prescribed in the G.O. So construed, the provision would suffer from neither invalidity nor constitutional infirmity.

Conflict Among High Courts Resolved

The Court noted that divergent views had been taken by various High Courts on the eligibility of married daughters for welfare schemes. It expressed agreement with the view taken by the Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Vimla Srivastava v. State of U.P. & Anr. (2015 SCC OnLine All 6776) and with decisions of the Bombay, Karnataka, and Calcutta High Courts, all of which had recognised that marital status cannot constitute a valid ground for denying the benefit of a welfare measure to an otherwise eligible daughter.

The contrary views expressed in Saida Begum and Smt. Kusumlata by Division Benches of the Allahabad High Court were held to not lay down the correct law and were expressly overruled.

Outcome

The Court found that the material on record established that the appellant had continued to reside in the same village after her marriage, had actively assisted her mother in operating the fair price shop, and had assumed responsibility for her sisters — including a visually impaired sister — after her mother's death. The authorities had not disputed any of these factual assertions. The sole ground for rejecting her application was her marital status, and that ground was held to be constitutionally invalid.

The orders dated 5 March 2025 (High Court), 7 January 2025 (Deputy Commissioner), and 16 July 2024 (SDM) were quashed and set aside. The competent authority was directed to issue the necessary allotment order in favour of the appellant within four weeks. The appeal was allowed with no order as to costs. The Court also placed on record its appreciation for the assistance rendered by the Amicus Curiae, Ms. Rukhmini Bobde.