'By Now You Should Resolve It' : Supreme Court To Union In Karnataka Govt's Plea Alleging Denial Of Drought Relief

In a writ petition filed by the Karnataka government alleging that the Centre was denying it financial assistance for drought management, the Supreme Court today urged the Union of India to resolve the issue at its end.

The matter was before a bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan, which posted it to January, 2025, in the  light of Attorney General R Venkataramani's request for time to file a reply to the state's objections to the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) report.

During the hearing, urging the Union to resolve the issue, Justice Gavai said, "by now, you should resolve it...". The AG responded to this by saying that there is some issue regarding interpretation of the law and after the Union assists on that, the Court may take a call.

Justice Gavai further probed as to how much amount has been released to the state. In reply, counsel for Karnataka informed that a request has been made for Rs.18,171 crores, the IMCT Report has recommended Rs.3,498 crores and the amount granted is Rs.3,819 crores.

To recap, the State of Karnataka filed the present petition alleging that the Central Government was denying financial assistance to the state for drought management under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Manual for Drought Management.

The Karnataka government sought Rs.18,171.44 crores under National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), through three Drought Relief Memorandum submitted in September-November 2023 ie, Rs.4663.12 crore towards crop loss input subsidy, Rs. 12577.9 crores towards gratuitous relief to families whose livelihood has been seriously affected due to drought, Rs.566.78 crore for addressing shortage of drinking water relief then and Rs.363.68 crores towards cattle care.

As per the state, under the Manual for Drought Management, the Central Government is required to take a final decision on assistance to the state from the NDRF within a month of the receipt of the IMCT report. The IMCT visited various drought-affected districts from 4th to 9th October, 2023 and submitted a report to the National Executive Committee constituted under Section 9 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005. However, the Central Government did not take final decision on assistance to the state from the NDRF even after a lapse of almost 6 months from the date of the said report.

In April this year, the Court, though inclined to issue formal notice, refrained from passing the order as the Attorney General and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that they would get instructions from the Union Government. SG Mehta further stated that if instead of filing a petition under Article 32, had someone spoken to the authorities on some level, the problem could have been solved. On this occasion, Justice Gavai urged the parties to ensure that there is no "contest".

Appearance: AoR DL Chidananda (for Karnataka); Attorney General R Venkataramani (for Union of India)

Case Title: State of Karnataka v. Union of India and Ors., W.P.(C) No. 210/2024