Calcutta High Court Directs South 24 Parganas DM To Enquire Into Alleged Misallocation Of Funds Under PM Awas Yojana

The Calcutta High Court on Monday asked the District Magistrate of South 24 Parganas district to inquire into alleged discrepancies in allocation of public funds under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.While disposing of a petition alleging “large scale illegalities” in the Yojana, a Division bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya ordered:“...without going into to the allegations, the District Magistrate, South 24 Parganas district, to is directed to consider the representation and investigate the matter, call for the necessary records, issue notices to all those concerned, and after a thorough enquiry, to take all action in accordance to law. In case public money has been found to be siphoned off, the DM is directed to take immediate remedial action and criminal actions against those who have siphoned off public funds. The above direction be complied with, within a period of 6 weeks.”The petitioners approached the Court alleging that the State machinery, including the Block Development Officer in South 24 Parganas district, had misallocated public funds under the aforesaid scheme, such that those who were undeserving of such public funds, were allocated benefits under the same. It was alleged that there were three-fold discrepancies in the allocation of funds by the State machinery. Firstly, it was submitted that money had been received in the bank accounts of those who were already deceased. Secondly, that in cases where application for benefit was made by one person, the subsequent benefits were received by someone else altogether. Finally, it was alleged that money had been received by those who were in no need for such funds, as they were already affluent individuals who were in possession of “multi-storied buildings.”The petitioners submitted that they had made repeated representations before the concerned DM to no avail, and to that effect, they submitted a list of the ID’s containing the details of all those persons, whose names were used for the siphoning off of public funds. It was submitted by Standing-counsel for the State, Advocate Samrat Sen, that an investigation into this issue could be undertaken by the District Magistrate, upon directions from the Court. Upon preliminary objections by the petitioners, that such a situation would be barred under the natural law principles of nemo judex causa sua, due to an investigation being sought into the allocation of resources by the State itself, the Court noted that the BDO had carried out the allocation for funds, and as such, the DM was directed to carry out a thorough investigation into the same. Coram: Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay BhattacharyaCase: Dipu Bar and Ors. Vs Union Of India and Ors. WPA(P)/340/2023Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Cal) 186

Calcutta High Court Directs South 24 Parganas DM To Enquire Into Alleged Misallocation Of Funds Under PM Awas Yojana

Srinjoy Das

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