A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has moved to the Delhi High Court, seeking the transparency in PM CARES FUND by bringing it under the ambit of RTI.
The petition given by Surender Singh Hooda cited the recent reports of the newspaper of PM CARES Fund refusing to give information seen by one Harsha Kundakarni case by claiming that the fund is not a ‘public property’ and within the ambit under Section 2(h) of Right to Information Act 2005.
“The hesitancy of the trustees of the fund in divulging the information to the management raise a profoundly serious apprehension, since the fund has been set up to fight COVID-19, which is public cause,” Mr Hooda, said. He is also a practitioner Advocate on record in the Supreme Court.
The petition will likely to come up for hearing on the 10th June. PM CARE Fund was announced on March 28 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as he urged all the Indians to donate in to the fund to help the country fighting COVID-19.
Now “after the two months, total amount of the fund stands approximately Rs10,000 crores. The plea was also states as the amount which was collected upon the strength of prestige lent by the PMO”. Mr. Hooda argued that the amount had been created by the donations from PSU’s, Central Ministries and its departments and in addition he said that the salaries of the armed personnel, the civil servants and the members of the judicial have compulsorily donated into the fund.
He intended that if PM CARES fund was not a public property or authority, then it needed to be examined whether the public authorities of the highest level could prompt the govt. agencies and the public servants to contribute to the fund whose details were now sought to be opaque.
The plea also said “that the victims of the pandemic coronavirus need funds to fight the pandemic and they are spread all over the country and are also not in a position to enforce their fundamental right of being financially supported and to be treated by the use of the funds collected in PM CARES fund”. The member of the public who have contributed and the victims are interested to know that how much fund has been collected and how they are being utilized or are planned to be utilized, the plea added.
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