In what could come as a boon to the Trinamool Congress Government ahead of next year’s Assembly elections, the Calcutta High Court (HC) on Friday directed the Centre to file an affidavit within a month regarding the release of pending funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) amounting to several thousand crores.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Smita Das De directed the Union government to file the affidavit within four weeks, writing how it had planned to release the MNREGA (more popularly called 100 days’ work scheme)
Funds which, according to the allegations levelled by the Mamata Banerjee Government, had been held back by the Centre for the past several years.
During the argument, TMC MP and State Government counsel Kalyan Banerjee told the Court that there were about “Rs 4,500 crore in arrears.” Additional Solicitor General Ashok Chakraborty, appearing for the Centre, argued that funds had been withheld because there had been “absolute misappropriation of funds by the State,” adding an enquiry had already been conducted into it. The counsel, however, said that the Union Government had no problem releasing the funds.
The judges said, “As accepted by all the parties that there exists no impediment for implementing MGNREGA with prospective effect, we deem it proper to implement the MGNREGA scheme forthwith.”
Earlier, the same Court, while hearing a petition filed by the West Bengal Agricultural Workers’ Union (Paschim Banga Khet Mojur Samiti) had directed the Centre to make the payments of the pending funds. The Union Government then preferred an appeal in the Supreme Court.
The Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta refused to entertain the Centre’s appeal and upheld the High Court order.
In what the TMC Government called a politics of vendetta, the BJP-led Centre had held back thousands of crores against works that had already been completed. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee repeatedly attacked the Centre for withholding the rightful funds of the agricultural workers for work they had done.
The TMC leadership welcomed the order, saying the “anti-Bengal, anti-worker BJP Government finally will have to pay the poor men’s dues which they had withheld to as a part of political vendetta.”
