THE SUPREME Court on Monday called on the Centre and state governments to refrain from a “contest”, and noted that various state governments were approaching the court to seek relief against the Centre in matters related to disbursal of funds. The bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta was hearing the Karnataka government's plea seeking a direction to the Centre to release financial assistance from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for drought management. “Let there not be a contest,” Justice Gavai remarked as Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state government, and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, traded charges. The Karnataka government has accused the Centre of not providing financial assistance for drought management. Sibal told the bench that the rules require the Centre to take a final decision on providing NDRF assistance within a month of receiving the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) report. For Karnataka, this period expired in December 2023, but there was nothing forthcoming, he submitted. Mehta said the matter could have been resolved if someone from the state had talked to the Centre instead of approaching the court. He also questioned the timing of the plea — before the Lok Sabha elections — and urged the court not to issue notice. The court noted that many states were approaching it to seek relief against the Centre in matters related to disbursal of funds. Mehta responded: “I don't wish to say why, but this is a growing tendency…” Mehta and Attorney General R Venkataramani agreed to get back to the court with instructions on the matter. The SC posted the matter for hearing after two weeks. Meanwhile, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah accused the Centre of submitting “false information” to the SC. “During today’s hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that the Karnataka government is to blame for the delay in drought relief, suggesting a political motive behind it. This is highly condemnable,” he said in a statement. “As I have repeatedly said over the past two-three months, our government had submitted to the Union Government in September 2023 itself, a memorandum including the details of the losses and the expected relief amount for the drought. After that, I and Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda had met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi to appeal. Our Deputy Chief Minister too had separately met the Union Finance Minister. Despite this, the Union Finance Minister and the Home Minister shamelessly continue to falsely claim that the Karnataka government has been late in submitting its request. Today, the Union Government repeated this lie before the Supreme Court as well,” he said. “Our fight against the injustice done by the Union Government in the provision of drought relief will continue not just on the streets but also in the courts. We will expose the lies of the Union Government one by one and reveal its true face to the people of the state,” he said. Earlier, the Tamil Nadu government had also approached the SC, saying the Centre was not releasing funds for disaster management. The Kerala government, too, had filed a plea accusing the Centre of curtailing its borrowing limits. Though it failed to get any temporary relief, the SC referred some of the questions arising out of its plea to a five-judge Constitution bench. The plea “raises more than one substantial questions regarding interpretation of the Constitution” including whether “Article 293 of the Constitution vests a state with an enforceable right to raise borrowing from the Union government and/or other sources,” the SC had said, adding, “if yes, to what extent such right can be regulated by the Union government?”. It had said that “since Article 293 (dealing with borrowing powers of states) of the Constitution has not been, so far, the subject to any authoritative interpretation by this Court, in our considered opinion, the aforesaid questions squarely fall within the ambit of Article 145(3) of the Constitution”. Besides, it also raises “various questions of significant importance impacting the federal structure of governance as embedded in our Constitution,” it had said.
