Allahabad High Court
M/S Society For Science & ... vs State Of U.P. And Others on 25 November, 2011
Bench: Sunil Ambwani, Manoj Misra
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 32
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 25920 of 2011
Petitioner :- M/S Society For Science & Environment Awareness & Another
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Others
Petitioner Counsel :- G.K. Singh,D.K. Singh
Respondent Counsel :- C.S.C.,Anurag Khanna,Arjun Prasad Yadav,K.S. Kushwaha,N.I. Jafri,S.M.A. Kazmi,Vipin Sinha
Hon'ble Sunil Ambwani,J.
Hon'ble Manoj Misra,J.
1. Shri K.S. Kushwaha appearing for Director, Mid Day Meal Authority, U.P. has filed an application along with an affidavit annexing therewith the order of Hon'ble Supreme Court in SLP (C)___/2011 CC 17529/2011 (State of U.P. & Ors vs. Society For Science & Environment Awareness and another) dated 8.11.2011 by which after condoning the delay, the Special Leave Petition against the orders dated 30.5.2011 and 2.8.2011 in this writ petition, was dismissed.
2. A prayer has been made that until the finalisation of the matter, which is already under investigation by CBI in pursuance to the directions issued by this Court, the hearing of the present writ petition may be deferred.
3. In paragraph-7 of the affidavit of Shri Anil Bhushan Chaturvedi, Deputy Director, Mid-Day-Meal Authority, U.P. at Lucknow, it is stated that as the CBI enquiry is pending, it would be appropriate that no other proceedings may be initiated or continued which may have the effect of overlapping the pending investigations and may lead to investigation being prejudiced by any material filed in those proceedings or any observation made by the Court.
4. The Mid-Day Meal Authority had filed an affidavit dated 7.8.2011 sworn by Shri Anil Bhushan Chaturvedi, Deputy Director, Mid-Day-Meal Authority, U.P. at Lucknow in which in para-8 it is stated as follows:-
"8. That the MDM Authority was constituted in December, 2006. The MDM Authority has very little infrastructure and merely seven officers are working in MDM Authority at present. The officials of MDM Authority conduct random inspection and on the basis of complaints, if any, received from the districts. Further, on the basis of annual work plan submitted by the districts, it is consolidated and after the approval of the Governing body of MDMA is obtained, it is submitted to the Central Government through the State Government. The Central Government, after approval of the annual plan, sanctions the budget to the State Government. Not a single penny is allocated directly to the MDM Authority by the Central Government for execution of MDM Scheme. The Central Government allocates all the MDM funds to the State Government in the State budget. The state government allocates the budget directly to the District Magistrates - the Nodal officers of the scheme. The said budget is required to be withdrawn by the District Magistrate from treasury and the District Magistrate allocates the said fund to the Gram Panchayat level in the joint account known as Gram Nidhi-V of Gram Pradhan and Gram Panchyat-Secretary for MDM (since 12.11.2010 the gram Panchayat Secretary has been replaced by School Headmaster and the account is known as Madhyanh Bhojan Nidhi). In case, the distribution of cooked meal is discharged by NGOs, on the basis of actual number of students taking cooked meal, the payment is required to be made by the District Basic Education Officer with the approval of District Magistrate Entire execution of the MDM scheme is under the control and supervision of the District Magistrate through District Basic Education Officer. The MDM Authority, in case of any irregularity in execution of MDM scheme, informs the state government with a request for proper action."
5. We find it surprising for an I.A.S. officer appointed as Director, Mid-Day-Meal Authority, UP to take a stand that any disclosure made to the Court about the working of Mid-Day Meal Scheme will prejudice the investigation made by the CBI into the irregularities and embezzlement of crores of rupees in District Mainpuri.
6. In our orders dated 6.5.2011, 30.5.2011, 26.5.2011 and 2.8.2011 after noticing large scale embezzlement of the mid-day meal funds in District Mainpuri, we had directed the CBI enquiry in which a preliminary report was submitted on which we permitted the CBI on its own request to take over investigation, which should also cover the supervision made by the UP Mid-Day-Meal Authority in the manner the supervision over utilisation of the mid-day meal funds allocated by the Central Government to the State of UP.
7. In all our previous orders, we had requested the Director, Mid-Day Meal Authority, considering the Mid Day Meal Scheme in which he is the Member Executive Secretary of the Authority and is required to monitor the implementation of the activities and utilisation of the funds disbursed, to inform the Court the manner, in which the MDMA is supervising the disbursement and utilisation of the funds.
8. The Committee constituted by Mid-Day Meal Authority including the three Assistant Deputy Directors and the Senior Finance and Accountants Officer, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan had reported on 3.6.2011 that there has been serious lapses in implementation of the Mid-Day Meal funds in District Mainpuri. The District Magistrate found the Basic Shiksha Adhikari and Finance & Accounts Officer in the office of Basic Shiksha Adhikari did not find it appropriate to make any financial supervision while disbursing the amounts in advance. There was no transparent process adopted in selecting the NGOs and original file is missing, which shows the complicity of the officers and employees.
9. Shri K.S. Kushwaha states that the State Mid Day Meal Authority will be filing a proper affidavit within ten days giving the details and bringing the method and manner in which it monitors the utilisation of the funds of the mid-day meal.
10. List again on 19.12.2011.
11. We may observe here that this is the fourth order made by the Court to the Mid-Day Meal Authority to file a detailed affidavit of the manner in which it is functioning and supervising the implementation of the scheme and utilisation of the funds. If the Director still insists avoiding to file the affidavit in the Court, we may draw adverse inference against him.
Order Date :- 25.11.2011
RKP
