Orders reserved in Rs 2K dole case

A division bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad before whom the plea came up, warned the petitioner of action as per IPC if it finds that attempts were made to mislead the court through the impugned GO submitted, which had certain paragraphs missing.

However, the bench directed the Advocate General Vijay Narayan, to submit a copy of the GO received by other officials before end of court hours to make sure that the GO was not modified following the court case.

Senior Counsel P Wilson appearing for the petitioner M Karunanidhi of Kadambur Post East Colony in Villupuram district, pointed out that following the statement made by the Chief Minister on the floor of the Tamil Nadu assembly that BPL families would be given special assistance of Rs.2000, the task has been entrusted to the Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Women’s Development Corporation (TNWDC) through a GO.

But, TNWDC has got into the process of disbursing Rs. 1,200 Crores to such families based on unreliable and outdated data. Subsequently, another GO No.20 dated February 13, 2019 was issued expanding the scope of more inclusions by way of collection of fresh details in total violation of the prevailing guidelines meant for identifying BPL families.

Noting that GO is irrational and whimsical, and this will pave way for official nepotism, favoritism and corruption by TNWDC, Wilson further submitted that the GO by including the word poor paves way to include more persons and since election is scheduled to be held in April this year, the entire exercise appears to be election related in a bid to garner their votes and thereby drain the entire tax payer’s money on undeserving families.

Advocate General Vijay Narayan who produced the relevant GO and on pointing out to the omission of some important parts in the GO submitted by the petitioner, said the petitioner must tell the court as to where he obtained the said GO. He also submitted during the study made it was found that largescale migration and death has transpired. Hence, fresh applications have been sought, which would be scrutinized by the welfare committee and thereafter decided to either include them or not.

Moreover, the first GO pertains to the scheme, the second GO dwells on the guidelines and the third GO merely confines to the appointment of IAS officers. The said officers would only monitor the implementation of the scheme and that they can neither add nor delete the beneficiaries.

Both the plea has not challenged the scheme and have confined it only to the recipients. But even that aspect has not risen, he added.