: Castigating the Tamil Nadu government for failing to allocate adequate funds for the judiciary, the Madras High Court on Thursday questioned whether the State was facing a “financial emergency” and proposed to declare it as such. “In which case, funding of all aspects of governance would be affected.”
“In such a situation, Article 360 (financial emergency) of the Constitution would come into play on the satisfaction of the President,” the three-judge Bench of Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and R. Mahadevan said in its interim order.
“The executive authority of the Union would extend to the giving of directions to any State to observe such canons of financial propriety as may be specified in the directions,” the court said and called for an affidavit from the State Finance Secretary as to whether the State government was proposing to declare a financial emergency.
The Bench made the observations while hearing a suo motu plea taken up in 2011 seeking the State government to grant Rs. 9.41 crore for 2010-11 for purchase of furniture for the subordinate judiciary, and a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition moved by an advocate which wanted a direction to the State government to allocate sufficient funds to the judiciary.
Noting that the court expresses its anguish and great concern in the manner in which funds are not being made available for infrastructure and running of the judiciary, which is one of the three pillars of the system, the Bench said, “The aggravated position is apparent from the fact that even functioning funds for State judicial academy are not made available and thus, two training programmes have already been postponed.”
The proposal for making available an additional sum of Rs. 35 lakh is still being “duly considered by the government and approval of competent authority is being obtained”. We do not see the sight of the money, the judges said.
Asserting that the primary responsibility for creating judicial infrastructure vests with the State government, though the Central government lends a helping hand in the formation of various schemes, the Bench said, “As far as the centrally sponsored schemes are concerned, the inaction and inability of the State government to properly complete the paper work has resulted in almost Rs. 150 crore of Central funds having lapsed. The blame rests at the door of the State government.”
Pointing out that 100 proposals to the tune of Rs. 150 crore made by the High Court is still pending with the State government for its approval, the Bench said that the government suggested 50 proposals could be taken up in the first phase and remaining in the second phase for allocation of funds in a prioritised manner. It, however, does not state as to which of the proposals the government has made available the funds even if it be half the proposals.
As for the proposal to allot 0.57 acres of land located near the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority building, the government has informed the court that the land is used for establihsin a High Court bus terminus. To this, the Bench said we would like to have a plan of the area as to how much is being used for the bus services and what activity is going on and the frequency of the users. Consequently, the court impleaded the Principal Secretary, Transport Department, and the Managing Director of Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai with a direction to file an affidavit explaining the aspects within two weeks.
The Bench then posted the pleas to November 30 for further hearing.
