Delhi High Court Grants Further Time To Centre For Filing Detailed Response In Plea To Declare PM Cares Fund As 'State'

The Delhi High Court on Friday granted further time to the Centre for filing a detailed and exhaustive reply in a plea seeking a declaration that PM CARES Fund is "State" under Article 12 of the Constitution of India.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad granted further four weeks' time to the Centre for filing its reply while posting the matter for hearing on January 31, 2023.

The Court had in July expressed displeasure over a one page affidavit earlier filed on behalf of the PM-CARES Fund Trust in the matter, remarking that the same wasn't detailed enough to justify the concerns raised in the petition.

Accordingly, the Centre was directed to file a detailed and exhaustive reply in the matter.

The affidavit filed by the Under Secretary at Prime Minister's Office had stated that there is no control of either the Central Government or the State Government in the functioning of the PM CARES Trust. It was also claimed that PM Cares Fund is a public charitable trust and that it is not created by or under the Indian Constitution or any other statute, and the amount received by it does not go in the Consolidated Fund of India.

About the Case

The Petitioner seeks declaration of the PM CARES Fund as a State. This he said, would attract consequential directions for: (i) disclosing the Fund's audit reports periodically; (ii) disclosing the Fund's quarterly details of donations received, utilization thereof and resolutions on expenditure of donations.

In the alternative it is contended that in case PM CARES Fund is not a State under Article 12, then: (i) Centre should widely publicize that PM CARES is not a Government owned fund; (ii) PM CARES Fund should be restrained from using "PM" in its names/ website; (iii) PM CARES Fund should be restrained from using the State Emblem; (iv) PM CARES Fund should be restrained from using the domain name "gov" in its website; (v) PM CARES Fund should be restrained from using PM's Office as its official address; (vi) Centre should not extend any Secretarial Support to the Fund.

The PM CARES Fund on the other hand has objected to maintainability of the petition, stating that alternative statutory remedies are available to the Petitioner under the RTI Act, 2005.

On merits, the Fund reiterates that it is not "public authority" within the meaning of Section 2(h) of the RTI Act inasmuch as the mandatory statutory requirements of the provision are not in existence. "There is no control of either the Central Government or any State Government/s, either direct or indirect, in functioning of the Trust in any manner whatsoever," the Fund claims. 

It is further claimed that the Trust functions with transparency and its funds are audited by an auditor who is a Chartered Accountant drawn from the panel prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

Significantly, the Supreme Court previously observed that there is no occasion for audit of PM CARES Fund by the Comptroller & Auditor General of India as it is a public charitable trust.

Case Title: Samayak Gangwal v. CPIO, PMO