delhi. The Supreme Court today passed strong orders directing Chief Secretaries of 10 states to appear before the court to explain non-implementation of the Court orders on drought relief. The bench of Justice Madan Lokur and M. V. Ramanna directed the Chief Secretaries to file an affidavit detailing what the state government has done to implement the court orders and appear in person on 26th of April. The court is hearing a contempt petition filed by Swaraj Abhiyan in the case related to state inaction during drought in 2015-16.
Arguing for the petitioner, Prashant Bhushan, also the president of Swaraj Abhiyan, presented facts and figures before the court to show that the historic verdict of the Supreme Court in the Swaraj Abhiyan case has been subverted by the Central and the State governments.
- The Central government frustrated the court orders to provide subsidised food-grain to all drought affected population by insisting on charging high price to the states.
- Despite the court orders, only 46% of the MNREGS payment is happening within the stipulated period of 15 days after work.
- The legal requirement of compensation for delayed payment in MNREGS has been fulfilled in just 3% cases.
- Not a single state has revised its Mid-Day-Meal menu despite clear directions by the apex court.
- As many as five states failed to fulfil the court’s direction of extending Mid-Day-Meal scheme during the summer vacation of 2016.
- The states have failed to provide information on distribution of crop loss compensation.
- The restructuring of crop loans has not taken place as per the Guidelines of the RBI.
Describing this as a landmark order, Yogendra Yadav expressed the hope that this ongoing case will result not just in relief to millions of drought affected farmers, but also in setting up of some long-term mechanism for redressal of farmer’s sufferings.
The Court expressed deep disappointment at the manner in which the governments had avoided their legal responsibility under the National Food Security Act, an act of the parliament. The court also wondered if there was any safeguard for ensuring that the public money spent on MNREGS was reaching the deserving population. After hearing submissions by Central and State governments, the court decided to add RBI as a respondent in the case. The States whose Chief Secretaries have been summoned are Madhya Pradesh , Karnataka , Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Bihar, Haryana and Chhattisgarh.
The Chief Secretaries are to file affidavits explaining what steps they have taken for implementation of the Court’s order, with regard to setting up of State Food Commissions, District Grievance Redressal Officers and generally implementation of National Food Security Act matters as directed by the court. The court has also asked the Central Govt to file an affidavit within 4 weeks, explaining what steps it has taken with regard to MNREGA scheme, with special emphasis on how the person days are computed between Centre and State and how demand generated is properly catered to.
The affidavit to be filed by the Central Govt has to contain and have focus on delay in payment of wages, delay in payment of compensation, reduction in person days and functioning of the Central Employment Guarantee Council and State Employment Guarantee Council. It should also contain all aspects of social audit in terms of the Act and the audit rules of 2011 with special consideration to the report of the Joint Task Force which had been setup by the Ministry of Rural Development Ministry of Agriculture and Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
On oral request of Shri Prashant Bhushan counsel for the petitioners, the court also directed that RBI be impleaded as a party to the case and the court then directed the bank to give data on load waiver, load recovery freeze, load restructuring and all other aspects of relief to farmers with regard to loans. The court also directed the Chief Secretaries of the states to explain if the directions of the court for giving supplemental nutrition through eggs or milk has been carried out in their states and whether mid day meal was served during summer vacation of 2016.
Swaraj Abhiyan had filed a case in the Supreme Court in December 2015 alleging indifference of central and state governments to the plight of the drought affected people. The Supreme Court had passed its historic orders in May 2015. Swaraj Abhiyan had filed a Contempt Petition in September 2016.
