A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the formation of a four-member committee for the identification of fake job cards in West Bengal in the 100-day job scheme under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
As per the directive of the Division Bench of Chief Justice Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya, the four-member committee will have one representative each from the Union Government, the West Bengal Government, the office of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, the office of the Accountant General, West Bengal.
As per the directive, the committee will prepare a district-wise report and for that, the committee members should make extensive visits to each sub-division in each district to check the enlisted job cards.
Two separate PILs had been filed at the Calcutta High Court relating to irregularities in West Bengal in the 100-day job scheme under the MGNREGA.
While one PIL has been filed by the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, the other has been filed by West Bengal Khet Mazdoor Samiti, an association of agricultural workers.
On Thursday, there was a parallel hearing on the PIL at the Division Bench of the Chief Justice, following which the court ordered for formation of the three-member committee. The division bench observed that the court wants to know the present situation since irrespective of whether there had been corruption or not in the implementation of the scheme, the genuine beneficiaries should never be deprived.
“Someone will have to take the responsibility,” the Chief Justice observed. The Union and West Bengal Governments have been at loggerheads for quite some time over the 100-day job scheme under the MGNREGA.
The court directed that on the next hearing date, the Central and State Governments and the office of the CAG and Accountant-General will give the names of the officers.
The bench directed that this four-member team will be constituted after the names are furnished to the court on the next date of hearing on January 25.
It directed that the committee will undertake the process expeditiously.
While the State Government has accused the Union Government of unnecessarily holding back the Central dues to the State Government under the scheme, the Centre has accused the State Government of massive irregularities in the implementation of the scheme.
Mamata and her Trinamool Congress party have been targeting the Narendra Modi-led Centre for blocking funds to various Central schemes such as MGNREGA and the National Health Mission.
In October, the Trinamool Congress had staged protests in Delhi under the leadership of national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee accusing the BJP-led NDA Government of withholding Rs 15,000 crore in MGNREGA dues. Around 2,500 people from Bengal, including TMC office-bearers and MGNREGA job card holders, were brought to the national capital to take part in the protest.
The MGNREGA, launched in 2006, was envisioned to provide employment to rural people. The scheme guarantees 100 days of employment to all individuals in rural India. These works can include anything from digging ponds, building houses, roads, culverts, planting trees and building bridges, among other such work. The MGNREGA is implemented by the local panchayat, for which the individuals seeking work need to apply to the panchayat, which then considers the application and forwards it to the block development officer for allocating work.
The alleged MGNREGA scam in Bengal came to light after the Centre mandated that all job cards be linked to Aadhaar and then it was found that many people who were supposedly working and receiving wages under the scheme were already dead or that duplicate job cards had been issued in fictitious names.
Tarunjyoti Tewari, a young BJP leader and High Court lawyer told The Daily Guardian: “There are thousands of people who have died and are being shown to be working under the MGNREGA scheme.
It is a huge scam that is going on in West Bengal and there is no doubt who is involved in this.”
