Activist moves SC to include PM CARES Fund as respondent in Covid case

Image Courtesy:dtnext.in

Activist Saket Gokhale had filed an Intervention Application (IA) before the Supreme Court asking for the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PMCARES) Fund to be made a respondent in the suo motu case being heard by the court on relief efforts related to Covid-19.

Gokahle, a well-known RTI activist, said, “I’ve filed an Intervention Application this morning in Supreme Court’s suo moto case on Covid-19. My application prays that PMCARES Fund be made a respondent in the case and furnish all details as it claims to be a dedicated (yet private) Covid-19 fund.” Explaining the rationale behind his move, Gokhale said, “The Govt of India has submitted in the Supreme Court that it cannot dictate vaccine prices as it hasn’t funded the research. However, PMCARES Fund did give 100 crores for vaccine development. And maybe more that it hasn’t disclosed. Ergo, it should be made a respondent & give all necessary disclosures is what I’ve prayed.”

What is PMCARES?

PMCARES Fund was set up on March 28, 2020, with the primary objective to deal with any kind of emergency situation like the one currently posed by the Covid-19 outbreak and provide relief to those affected. The Prime Minister is the ex-officio chairman of the fund and the defence, home and finance ministers are its ex-officio trustees.

Why so mysterious?

Ever since the PMCARES Fund was set up, questions have been raised about the opacity of its operations. An RTI application seeking the trust deed of the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PMCARES) Fund elicited a response from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) stating that the trust fund is not a public authority. The RTI application was filed by Harsha Kandukuri, a student of LLM at Azim Premji University, seeking copies of the trust deed and all government orders, circulars and notifications related to its creation and functioning.

The Fund has been the subject of several court cases. A petition at the Delhi High Court seeks to bring PM CARES under the ambit of the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) so that all the information such as amount collected, utilised can be readily available for the public at large. Another petition at Delhi High Court has challenged the rejection of information on PM CARES Fund by the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) in response to an RTI application.

In May 2020, a petition was filed before the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court seeking an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) into the PMCARES Fund. In June, a public Interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions that the Centre transfers all contributions of the PM CARES Fund to the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) and that it formulates a National Plan as per the Disaster Management Act. This petition was dismissed by the SC in August 2020.

Saket Gokhale’s previous concerns about PMCARES

On December 17, 2020, Gokhale wrote to Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla seeking prosecution sanction to initiate proceedings against Pradeep Kumar Srivastava who is the Under Secretary (Funds) in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and one of the officials responsible for handling the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PMCARES) Fund.

Gokhale wanted to initiate action against Srivastava and others handling the fund under provisions of the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005. Gokhale’s letter quotes from the trust deed of PM CARES fund that says, “This trust is not created under the Constitution of India or by any law made by Parliament or by any State Legislature.” It adds, “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 matter whatsoever.”

This passage is what Gokhale used as the basis for challenging the usage of the national emblem that as per law may only be used by official government entities for official government purposes.