Swaraj Abhiyan, a political party, petitioned the Supreme Court on Tuesday for an urgent hearing on its request that the Centre ensure that states have adequate funds to implement the MGNREGA rural employment guarantee scheme. A bench consisting of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala took note of lawyer Prashant Bhushan’s submissions and said the plea may be mentioned for urgent hearing before the relevant bench. The state governments are facing a shortage of Rs 9,682 crores as of November 26, 2021, and 100% of the allocated funds for the year have been exhausted before the end of the year, according to the report. This is despite the fact that the excuse of a lack of funds is a gross violation of the law, it said, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision on MGNREGA wage payments. The petition requested that the Central Government issue instructions to set up a mechanism to ensure that states have adequate funds to carry out the programme in the following month. It has also requested that the authorities ensure the payment of compensation for wage delay, as prescribed in the MGNREGA, as well as the payment of all pending wage payments due. In 2015, Swaraj Abhiyan, then an NGO, filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking various reliefs for rural poor and farmers, and later filed an interim application in that plea.
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