New Delhi: The Supreme Court reserved its order on Monday on a plea, which said all the money collected under the PM CARES Fund for the COVID-19 pandemic should be transferred to the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF).
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told a bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan that the PM CARES Fund is a 'voluntary fund' while funds to the NDRF and SDRF are made available through budgetary allocations.
The bench was hearing pleas and suo moto case on miseries and problems of the migrants due to the consequent lockdown imposed after COVID outbreak in the country.
One of the pleas filed by Centre for Public Interest Litigation(CPIL) had sought a national plan to deal with the crisis and transferring of funds from PM CARES to NDRF as it is a 'fraud' on the constitution, a private trust which has Ministers as its trustees, as argued by Sr Adv Dushyant Dave appearing for the petitioner.
Dave questioned on why PM CARES has to be audited privately when this government deals with transparency.
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Senior advocate Kapil Sibal added that CSR benefits are not provided to the donors of state fund but provided to PM CARES. Centre, represented by SG Tushar Mehta, hit back saying that issue of CSR benefits in different funds is not an issue currently before the top court.
Dave contended that by the virtue of the Act every contribution made towards dealing with disaster must be transferred to NDRF.
SC observed that proper counter reply on transferring funds from PM Cares to NDRF has not been filed but SG don't wish to reply further. Dave has been given 3 days to submit his affidavit after which the court will make a decision.
For matter pertaining to the directions ordered by the top court for taking care of migrants, centre informed the court once again that around 1 crore people have been shifted.
Rebutting the claims of the petitioners of not having a national plan to deal with COVID, SG argued saying that national plan, biological disaster plan, COVID management plan etc is in place but it can not be static, straight jacket fixed plan is not possible.
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State of Bihar appraised the court it has registered over 7 lakh people in 'AAPDA' relief centres and more registrations will happen.
For Maharashtra, SG Mehta said that there are no requests for Shramik trains.
The apex court observed that centre's affidavit just says that directions have been complied with but there are no details. It asked the centre as well as the states to file appropriate compliance reports within 2 weeks.
The Supreme Court has reserved its order on the issue raised in the petition regarding transferring the money collected under the PM CARES Fund to the NDRF.
On June 17, the apex court had asked the Centre to file its response on the plea, which has sought a direction that all the contributions made by individuals and institutions for the COVID-19 pandemic should be credited to the NDRF, rather than to the PM CARES Fund.
