Supreme Court Posts Karnataka's Plea For Drought Relief Fund From Centre To July

The Supreme Court on May 6 posted to July the hearing of the plea filed by Karnataka government against the Union of India for drought relief funds.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta passed the order, taking into account Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal's opposition of Union's stance that Karnataka had not furnished relevant data.

Sibal said that there are “factual errors” in the report given by the Centre: “I've seen it, we want to file a reply. There are factual errors in it. They say we have not given them data, but we have given”.

It may be recalled that last week, the Court had directed the Centre to submit the report of the Inter-Ministerial Central Team.

Prior to that, Attorney General R Venkataramani had informed that there was no longer a need for argument as pursuant to the previous hearing, the Union government solicited the Election Commission's clearance for dealing with the matter and had been granted the same. The AG further submitted that the needful would be done expeditiously.

Later, the Centre allotted over Rs 3,400 crores to the state, which asked for Rs 18,171 crores.

Background

State of Karnataka filed the writ petition alleging that the Centre was denying it financial assistance for drought management under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Manual for Drought Management.

Reportedly, the state government had sought Rs.18,171.44 crores under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) through three Drought Relief Memorandum, but the Union refused to take a call on the same.

It is pleaded that the Union's actions violate fundamental rights of the people of Karnataka under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution as well as the statutory scheme of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the Manual for Drought Management and the Guidelines on Constitution and Administration of the State Disaster Response Fund and National Disaster Response Fund.

The grievance is further highlighted by pointing that under law, the Central Government is required to take a final decision on the assistance to the State from the NDRF within a month of the receipt of the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT). However, that period was over in December, 2023.

Case Title: State of Karnataka v. Union of India and Ors., W.P.(C) No. 210/2024