Vijayawada: The Supreme Court has directed the Andhra Pradesh government to return Rs 1,100 crore to the state’s Disaster Response Fund from the personal deposit account. A division bench headed by Justice MR Shah heard a petition filed by social activist Palla Srinivasa Rao in New Delhi on Monday before issuing the direction.
The court also ordered that any person who applied for Covid compensation -- and whose claim was approved but the money was not paid within 30 days -- could approach the grievance redressal authority for its urgent payment.
The judge also directed every state and Union Territory to provide Covid relief in accordance with its earlier order and without any delay.
The Comptroller and Auditor General earlier submitted to the apex court that the AP government transferred the SDRF fund to the personal deposit account and such funds remained un-utilized even after two years. This meant the AP government flouted the principle of SDRF, the CAG noted.
The petitioner filed his plea before the apex court based on a reply given by the Union minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary for a query raised by TD MP Ram Mohan Naidu in Parliament.
In his reply, the Union minister said the AP government received an amount of Rs 324.15 crore as central share of the SDRF and an amount of Rs 570.91 crore under NDRF from the central government. As per the CAG report on AP’s finances for the financial year that ended in March, 2020, an amount of Rs 1,100 crore was transferred to the deposit account of the directorate of agriculture towards payment of input subsidy to farmers for kharif by way of gratuitous relief.
This amount was again transferred to the personal deposit account of the commissioner, directorate of agriculture, on March 31, 2020. The state government transferred Rs 1,100 crore to the personal deposit account by showing expenditure as disaster relief and rehabilitation in violation of the Appropriation Act and the entire expenditure transferred to the PD account was adjusted from the SDRF by showing it as ‘deduct’ expenditure, in violation of SDRF accounting procedure.
The reply stated that booking the expenditure without actually incurring it raised questions about the accuracy of the expenditure figures of the state government. Moreover, “the state government stated that these funds were demarcated for pandemic-related expenditure and were utilised in the following financial year.”
However, the SDRF guidelines allow adjustment of expenditure from the fund only for expenditure incurred on providing immediate relief. The state government has, however, transferred the funds from SDRF to the personal deposit account without using it for extending immediate relief.
