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Resume 100 days' work scheme in state from Aug 1, HC tells centre
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Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday directed Centre to resume the 100 days' work programme in Bengal from Aug 1, saying the scheme could not be "put in cold storage for eternity".
The scheme (the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) has been suspended in Bengal for close to three years.
A person who obtained wages illegally or under fictitious names could not go free and had to be dealt with firmly, Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam said. "But what about those who did the work genuinely?" he asked, observing: "A line should be drawn and a cut-off date announced."
Centre could impose special conditions, restrictions and regulations to check irregularities and for the recovery of money misappropriated in the past, the division bench of CJ Sivagnanam and Justice Chaitali Chatterjee (Das) said.
There should be a "transparent procedure" in place to ensure disbursal of wages and utilisation of funds, the CJ added.
Centre had sufficient powers to inquire into the irregularities and take action, as was done in at least four districts, he said. "(But), at this juncture, the court is concerned with the prospective implementation of the scheme," he said, observing that the Centre was empowered to issue "whatever special directives (needed) to plug whatever happened three years ago".
The bench directed the state to comply with Centre's directives and said they would be "non-negotiable".
State advocate-general Kishore Datta submitted that the centre in 2016 introduced a National Electronic Transfer portal by which wages were directly transferred to beneficiaries' bank accounts. The bench also took note of additional solicitor-general Ashoke Kumar Chakraborty's submission that the state had deposited recoveries in the nodal officer's state account but had not transferred the money to the Consolidated Fund of India as stipulated by law.
The division bench fixed the next hearing on any day after Aug 15.
