Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has issued notices to the Centre and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) while hearing a review petition challenging the constitutional validity of Prime Minister National Relief Fund (PMNRF) and Prime Minister’s Citizen’s Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation Fund (PM CARES Fund).
The review petition has sought declaration of PM CARES Fund and PMNRF as unconstitutional as there is already Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), which is constituted by the central government and is a statutory fund under the 2005 Act, needed to combat a crisis like Covid-19.
“When there is already a statutory public trust, i.e., the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF)’ by the central government, the PMNRF has lost its utility, necessity and efficacy and became otiose and redundant due to its clash of interests with that of the NDRF,” the petitioner pleaded.
Hearing a review petition filed by one Divya Pal Singh, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker and Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh, directed to list this case in the last week of July for the next hearing.
Earlier, a division bench of the high court had dismissed Singh’s petition challenging the validity of the PM CARES Fund on August 31, 2020.
Thereafter, a petition was filed before the Supreme Court challenging the August 31 judgment of the high court.
The Supreme Court asked the petitioner to approach the high court first by filing the review petition, further allowing him to again approach the apex court in case he is aggrieved by the high court order in review.
The petitioner sought to declare the PM CARES fund legally unsustainable as ‘a huge amount of public money has secretly been poured into the bank account of the PM CARES fund, which is by nature non-transparent, opaque and unaccountable’.
Besides, it is beyond the purview of RTI Act, unaudited by CAG and completely hidden from public view and scrutiny, the petition said.
“The public has absolutely no clue about the incalculable amounts of money secretly, unauthorisedly and unlawfully being pumped into the PM CARES fund every day and neither have the people any inkling of where and how such money is being used/spent. Apart from that, there is no data or proof of voluntary donations available anywhere, which may be manifold of the involuntary ones,” the petition said.
The petitioner also requested that the money as collected by the central government as public trusts in PMNRF and PM CARES fund be deemed as money collected towards NDRF constituted by the central government under the 2005 Act, and the funds so collected deserve to be transferred/ credited therein, so as to be under the public scanner and to be used fairly and under existing efficient and effective statutory procedure as per the mandate of the 2005 Act.
It sought that the high court may direct the central government to make full disclosure of accounts, activity and expenditure details of the PM CARES fund to the public at large, desirably, by publishing the details upon the government website for all to see, and the accounts to be updated regularly.
Besides, the petitioner requested the court to direct the audit of the PM CARES fund by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in the interests of justice and the public at large.
