Kolkata, Jun 18 (PTI) The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to implement the MGNREGA, the 100-day job guarantee scheme, prospectively in West Bengal from August 1.
The HC said the Centre is empowered to impose special conditions, restrictions and regulations, which have not been imposed in other states, so as to ensure that no irregularity occurs when the scheme is being implemented in West Bengal.
Noting that the wages for the scheme were not being paid for around three years in the state over allegations of irregularities and illegalities in disbursals to some of the recipients, the court asked the central government to impose checks and balances as required to ensure that real beneficiaries get the benefits of the funds.
Allowing the Centre to continue its enquiry into the allegations of irregularities in some districts of the state, a division bench presided by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam directed that the scheme be implemented prospectively with effect from August 1.
The court directed that the authorities in charge of the implementation of the scheme are entitled to impose special conditions to ensure that whatever had occurred three years prior should not recur.
The court said that it is not in dispute that certain irregularities have been pointed out by the Centre in the disbursement of wages under the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) scheme.
The bench, also comprising Justice Chaitali Chatterjee (Das), noted that with regard to allegations of irregularities, action has been initiated, recoveries made and that such amount is being maintained in a bank account of the state nodal agency of MGNREGS, West Bengal.
The division bench said that at this juncture, the endeavour of the court is to ensure implementation of the scheme, which has been kept in abeyance for the past close to three years in the state.
The court said that no one can allow a person who illegally took advantage of the scheme to go scot free.
“At this juncture, the court is concerned about the implementation of the scheme in West Bengal prospectively,” the bench observed.
“The scheme of the Act does not envisage a situation where the scheme would be put to cold storage for eternity,” it said.
The bench said that the Centre has sufficient powers to inquire into irregularities or illegalities in the manner of disbursement of the wage.
The court said that there can, however, be a line drawn between past actions and future steps to be taken to implement the scheme.
It said that this would be “in public interest” and subserve the object and purpose for which the central law was enacted.
The high court had on April 10 directed the central government to state why the MGNREGA scheme should not be prospectively implemented in West Bengal, leaving out four districts.
Hearing petitions seeking that beneficiaries be handed over funds due to them for work done, the court had noted that the Act provides that there cannot be an indefinite withholding of implementation of a scheme on the ground of a complaint received and that appropriate remedial measures for the implementation of the scheme have to be taken within a reasonable period.
It has been stated that there are allegations of defalcation of funds with regard to four districts of Purba Bardhaman, Hooghly, Malda and Darjeeling (GTA area).
The central government on Wednesday submitted its stand in the form of an affidavit on implementing the NREGA scheme prospectively in the state.
The state had stated before the court that 22 compliance reports had been filed by it to the Centre.
The bench said that the case of the petitioner is that there might have been some bad incidents, but there are people who have genuinely worked and they are not being paid the wages due to them.
The ruling TMC has been accusing the BJP-led Centre of withholding the rural job scheme funds for several years, while the saffron party is of the view that irregularities in its implementation were the reason that. PTI AMR NN
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.