The Supreme Court on Monday postponed to July the hearing of the plea lodged by Karnataka government against the Centre for drought relief funds.
A bench comprising Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta passed the judgment, taking into consideration Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal’s opposition of the Union’s stance that Karnataka had not furnished relevant data.
The Senior Advocate also said that there are factual errors in the report given by the central government. Mentioning that they want to file a reply, the counsel said that the Centre asserted that the state did not provide the data, whereas they have given it.
Earlier, the top court had ordered the Centre to hand over the report of the inter-ministerial team. Attorney General R Venkataramani told the court that there was no longer a need for argument as pursuant to the previous hearing, the Centre solicited the Election Commission’s clearance for dealing with the matter and had been granted the same. He further submitted that the needful would be done expeditiously.
Subsequently, the Centre allotted over Rs 3,400 crore to the State. Karnataka has asked for Rs 18,171 crore. The state filed the writ petition alleging that the Centre was denying it financial assistance for drought management under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Manual for Drought Management.
The state government had sought Rs.18,171.44 crores under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) through three Drought Relief Memorandum, but the Centre refused to take a call on the same.
The state mentioned in its plea that the Centre’s actions violate fundamental rights of the people of Karnataka under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution and the statutory scheme of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the Manual for Drought Management and the Guidelines on Constitution and Administration of the State Disaster Response Fund and National Disaster Response Fund.
Furthermore, it pointed out that under law, the central government is required to take a final decision on the assistance to the State from the NDRF within a month of the receipt of the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT). Nonetheless, that period was over in December, 2023.