Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh High Court pulled up the state government for the delay in clearing dues of works taken up under job scheme in 2018-19 despite its order given earlier and asked whether the government had respect towards its orders.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice A.K. Goswami and Justice N. Jayasurya held a hearing on Wednesday, on a batch of petitions on delay in clearing dues of works taken up under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme under the material component for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The court asked the government as to why it failed to clear the dues of the job scheme when it had issued an order on January 8, 2020, itself and questioned how 20 percent of the amount could be cut in all works for the reason that there were some irregularities. The court asked who conducted the vigilance probe and asked the panchayat raj principal secretary Gopala Krishna Dwivedi and its commissioner Girija Shankar about its findings. As they failed to give details of the vigilance probe, the court expressed displeasure and faulted them for attending the court without studying the vigilance report. The court asked them whether it was the way to respect the court orders.
The court expressed its ire on finance principal secretary S.S. Rawat for failing to attend the hearing and observed that the affidavit filed seeking exemption from appearance in the court, was not having proper details. The court warned to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the official.
However, government special pleader C. Sumon apologised for the absence of the official and submitted that as the official went to Delhi to attend a meeting, he could not be present at the court hearing and said he would attend the court in the next hearing.
The court said in the next hearing all the three government senior officials should attend and also should be ready with all relevant information on the issue.
Petitioners’ counsels Dammalapati Srinvas, Narra Srinivasa Rao and others submitted to the court that though the government informed the court earlier that it had issued budget release order for `875 crore and paid `413 crore to the gram panchayats, they were having information that only Rs 40 crore was paid. Then the court directed the government to file an affidavit with details of how much was paid and to be paid gram panchayat-wise.
Advocate general S. Sriram and SGP C. Sumon submitted that they were yet to pay `1,117 crore for the works valued at above Rs five lakh and assured to pay in four weeks as they were yet to receive funds from the Centre.
The court posted the next hearing to August 18.
