Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Maninder Singh on May 8 revealed some shocking data in front of the Supreme Court bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta.
During the hearing of the National Campaign Committee, CL, Labour’s contempt petition, the ASG said that as per the audit report, the Rs 20,000 crore given to state governments for implementing various schemes and rules framed under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, was untraceable.
The contempt petition was brought before the Court for alleged non-compliance of its earlier order which had directed the centre and state governments to comply with the provisions of the Act.
In the last hearing, a promise was made before the Court that the audit report would be filed within two weeks.
Hearing the ASG’s revelation, Justice Lokur said: “This is shocking, to say the least.”
The petitioner’s counsel, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves said the money was with the state governments, but they had used it for other purposes and the money had not reached the welfare boards formed under the Act.
The ASG said that whatever had happened so far, all the governments must learn from it and the states should be asked to maintain accounts. He also said that even if no separate accounts were maintained with respect to the money given under the Act, the same could be found out from the consolidated accounts of the state governments.
Gonsalves said that audit must be done not only of the state governments’ accounts but also of welfare boards.
The Court directed that state governments’ accounts be audited find out:
- How much money had been given to states.
- How much of that money had been transferred to the welfare boards.
- To return the rest of the money lying with the state governments.
—India Legal Bureau