Covid relief: SC pulls up Andhra Pradesh govt for failing to respond to plea for diversion of funds

The Supreme Court on Thursday castigated the Andhra Pradesh government for failing to respond to a plea alleging diversion of hundreds of Crore covid ex-gratia funds to personal deposit accounts.

A bench of Justices M R Shah and B V Nagarathna also pulled up the state counsel for stating that the affidavit could not be filed as the father of the finance secretary was hospitalised.

"The government is run by the finance secretary? We want the chief secretary's affidavit," the bench told him.

Maintaining that the matter is serious, if funds were used for other purposes, the court said it was giving the last chance to the chief secretary to explain the issue. It posted the matter for consideration on May 13.

In his submission, the state counsel contended that no amount has been diverted from Covid disaster management funds. The money was meant for drought relief, sanctioned in 2018, he claimed.

The top court had on April 13 restrained the Andhra Pradesh government from transferring funds from the State Disaster Response Fund to a personal deposit account, saying it is a very serious issue.

The plea by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal on behalf of former MLA Palla Srinivasa Rao, said at a time the top court was actively and continuously monitoring the implementation of its October 2021 order, dealing with the issue of disbursing ex-gratia assistance of Rs 50,000 to next of kin died due to Covid-19, the diversion of funds by the AP government from the SDRF to personal deposit account was not only against the law of the land but was also contemptuous in nature.

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