The Supreme Court Tuesday directed the Centre to disburse funds allocated for various state governments to develop infrastructure and filling up vacancies in subordinate judiciary.
A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices DeepakGupta and Sanjiv Khanna perused the report filed by senior advocate Vijay Hansaria,appointed as amicus curiae in the matter.
Taking note of the report, the bench directed that thecompliance reports of the Centre, state governments and Union Territories besent to the amicus curiae — one who assists a court by offering informationand expertise on the issues pertaining to a case.
Hansaria, assisted by advocate Sneha Kalita, soughtdirections to the Centre, as a one time measure, to consider release of Rs15,000 crore for pending proposals in a phased manner and the matchingcontribution by the state governments and UTs.
He pointed out that with regard to short term directionswhereby the states were required to submit to the Centre utilisationcertificates of funds disbursed, only eight states and three Union Territories— Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Assam, Goa andJammu & Kashmir, Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar island and Puducherry — havesubmitted the required details.
In the note, Hansaria sought directions to the states ofUttarakhand (Rs 2.30 crore), Arunachal Pradesh (Rs 2.92 crore), Tripura (Rs16.97 crore), Puducherry (Rs 7.95 crore), Delhi (Rs 10.92 crore) and Chandigarh(Rs 7.97 crore) to submit their pendingutilization certificates for 2017-18 within a month.
Further, he sought directions to the Centre to restore the earlier fund sharing pattern of 75 per cent and 25 per cent.