Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a PIL seeking transfer of money collected under the PM CARES Fund for the COVID-19 pandemic to the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF).
A Bench, led by Justice Ashok Bhushan, ruled that PM CARES fund need not be transferred to NDRF. It’s open to anyone to contribute to PM Cares Fund, it said.
The plan prepared by the government under NDRF was sufficient even for COVID-19, it said, adding the action plan under NDRF was sufficient and no fresh action plan for tackling COVID-19 was required.
It said the Centre can utilise the NDRF fund for COVID-19 relief.
“Any contribution or grant can be credited to NDRF. It’s open for anyone to contribute to NDRF as voluntary contributions”, the top court said, adding there was no statutory prohibition to making a contribution to NDRF by any person or institution.
The Supreme Court had on July 27 reserved its order on a PIL seeking transfer of money collected under the PM CARES Fund for the COVID-19 pandemic to NDRF.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told the Bench that the PM CARES Fund is a “voluntary fund” while funds to the NDRF and SDRF are made available through budgetary allocations.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, representing petitioner Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), had said the NGO didn’t doubt the bona fides of anyone but the creation of the PM CARES Fund violated provisions of the National Disaster Management Act.
He had claimed the NDRF was being audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) but the government has said the audit of the PM CARES Fund will be done by private auditors.
The Centre has been defending PM Cares Funds, saying the existence of National Disaster Relief Fund didn’t prohibit the establishment of a new fund.
In an affidavit filed in the top court last month, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had said PM CARES Find provided for voluntary donations to be made to it and there was no need to transfer donations received in one fund to another.
The Supreme Court had on June 17 issued notice to the Centre and sought to know if a National Plan under NDMA had been framed or not.
The petitioner had alleged that the Centre was not divulging information about specific utilization of crores of rupees received in the PM CARES Fund till date.
But the MHA said, “There are several funds which are either established earlier or now for carrying out various relief works. PM Cares is one such fund with voluntary donations. The mere existence of a statutory fund would not prohibit in the creation of a different fund like PM Cares Fund which provides for voluntary donations.”
To the petitioner’s demand for transfer of money from PM CARES Fund to NDRF account, the MHA said such a prayer was not maintainable under Article 32 of the Constitution “as all funds other than the funds stipulated under Section 46 of Disaster Management Act, 2005, are separate, different and distinct created under separate provisions.”
The MHA affidavit also questioned the petitioner’s motive behind filing the PIL, saying it had been only dealing with filing PILs since the concept of PIL originated.
An empowered group formed by the government was working closely with 92,000 genuine NGOs across India to chart out the best course of the response, it submitted.
To petitioner’s demand for a preparing a national plan in consultation with the state governments and experts, the MHA said, currently, there was no such national plan in place to deal with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic even though the same had been notified as a ‘disaster’ and numerous notifications are being issued to contain the same under the DM Act.
