Govt not bound to transfer funds from PM CARES to NDRF, rules SC

Money collected under the PM CARES Fund for the Covid-19 pandemic need not be transferred to the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), the Supreme Court said today, adding that the government is free to transfer money to the disaster response fund if it feels it is appropriate to do so. 

The court also said there is no need for a new plan and that one under the National Disaster Management Act, made by the government last November, is enough to deal with Covid-19.

This was a complete and unquestioning clean chit to the government that ministers and top leaders celebrated through tweets and statements. Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Prakash Javadekar said: “people of the country voluntarily donated money as per their ability to the Fund in order to strengthen country's fight against the highly infectious virus.The smear campaign of the Congress party against the fund, a public registered trust, exposes their character and is an insult to the general public at large”. BJP President JP Nadda and Union Law minister Ravishankar Prasad hailed the Supreme Court order.

Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave appeared for Centre For Public Interest Litigation and asked the court to direct the government to transfer of contributions made to the PM CARES Fund for the pandemic to the National Disaster Response Fund. The PM CARES fund violates the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, Dave argued, as it did not come under the purview of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), and was not authorized by any statue.

Senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan tweeted: “Unfortunate that the SC allows the non-transparent and unaccountable PM-Cares fund set up as a secret trust to garner money in the name of Covid relief, rather than transferring such funds to the Statutory NDRF which is accessible under RTI and audited by CAG."

Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund was set up by the centre on March 28 to deal with any kind of emergency situation like the one currently posed by the pandemic and provide relief to those affected. The Prime Minister is the ex-officio chairman of the fund and the defence, home and finance ministers are ex-officio trustees.

Prasad  contested this and said PMCARES is a registered public trust with the PM as chairman, meant for emergencies like Covid-19 whereas the PM National Relief Fund was created by a verbal order by the then PM to serve the needs of refugees from Pakistan, etc.

State chief ministers have argued that while the National Disaster Relief Fund proceeds can be shared with the state governments when national calamity strikes, there is no such provision in PMCARES, which runs the danger of the funds being distributed as the party in power thinks fit.

PM CARES is eligible for CSR by corporate houses but is above any scrutiny by any arm of the government. Civil society activists who have tried to get information on the pattern of fund distribution using the Right to Information have been denied information.

However, Prasad said the full account of PM CARES was completely transparent and on the website that anyone could access. He also said that in the past, NDRF grants had been transferred to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation which was a family trust run by the Gandhis. Not only that, public money was allocated to the Foundation in the form of grants in the budget.

“Government has decided to contribute Rs 100 crore to the Foundation at the rate of Rs 20 crore per per annum for a period of five years beginning from the current year," said then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh in his 1991-92 budget speech. However, Sonia Gandhi turned the grant down and said the government should use it for other projects.

BJP President J P Nadda said Rahul Gandhi’s rants had been dismissed by the common man who had overwhelmingly contributed to PM CARES. “With the highest court also pronouncing its verdict, will Rahul and his ‘rent a cause’ activist army mend their ways or embarrass themselves further?” he asked.

Audited accounts of PMCARES show Rs 3,076 crore as voluntary contributions from both domestic and foreign sources. Of this, Rs 2,000 crore has been spent for supply of 50,000 ‘Made-in-India’ ventilators to Government Hospitals run by central and state governments, Rs 1,000 crore has been spent for the care of migrant labour (money which has been allotted to states) and Rs 100 crore has been spent towards vaccine development. However, a further breakup of expenditure is not provided.