VIJAYAWADA: The high court on Thursday warned of initiating contempt proceedings against the officials responsible for delay in payments for works done under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) during 2017-18.
The HC bench headed by Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice Ninala Jayasurya directed the principal secretary for finance, panchayatraj and rural development, and te panchayatraj commissioner to appear in person before the court on August 4 if they fail to clear the pending bills by then.
A batch of petitions were filed before the high court alleging that the state government is not paying bills for works done under MGNREGS. The government had earlier told the court that a vigilance enquiry is underway over allegations of various discrepancies and payments would be made based on the outcome of the enquiry.
On Thursday, special government pleader C Sumon told the court that they could not complete the payments as the state is yet to receive funds from the Union government. He added that multiple representations have been made to the Central and the state is expecting to receive the pending funds soon.
Arguing on behalf of one of the petitioners, senior counsel P Veera Reddy contended the government’s argument, stating that it told the court in April that a budget release order of 870 crore has been issued, but now is claiming it did not receive funds from the Centre.
Another senior counsel, Dammalapati Srinivas, said the Union government has been releasing funds from time to time but the state government has diverted those funds for other purposes. He said the argument of Centre not giving funds holds no water as the state government cleared the bills for the years 2019 and 2020. The payments for 2018 have been intentionally delayed as the works were done during the previous government, he added.
Taking a serious view of the issue, the bench said the officials responsible for the payments should explain to the court about the delay in payments by appearing in person. The court also wanted to know why payments for 2018 were pending when the same has been cleared for 2019 and 2020.
