Decide on probe or will step in: SC

We are informed by Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising that the government is considering to approach the CBI for conducting the probe8230; we are giving four weeks time to the Centre. We make it clear that if the Centre does not take any decision,we would step in, the bench,also comprising Justices KS Panicker and Swatanter Kumar,remarked.

The court made the observation while hearing a PIL filed by an NGO,Centre for Environment and Food Security in 2007,that alleged large-scale corruption in the implementation of MNREGA in the state.

The bench noted reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Institute of Rural Development NIRD,which show massive misappropriation of funds to the tune of 88 per cent in some districts of the state. Reports of CAG as well as NIRD shows misappropriation of funds allegedly by officials and functionaries of the implementation agencies, it observed.

Last year,the court,while hearing the same PIL,had rapped both the central and state governments for their apparent failure in properly executing the rural job guarantee scheme and had asked them to explain as to why a CBI probe should not be ordered. We are constrained to observe that the Union of India as well as the State of Orissa,prima facie,have failed to effectively and purposefully implement the provisions of the MNREG Act, it had said.