In a civil review petition challenging the validity of the PM CARES Fund, the Allahabad High Court recently issued notices to the Centre and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
It should be noted that in August 2020, the High Court rejected a PIL filed by two HC counsel, Divya Pal Singh and Anubhav Singh, challenging the constitutional validity of the PMCARES Fund and the PMNRF in light of the Disaster Management Act.
Following that, the petitioner moved before the Supreme Court to challenge the HC’s order. However, in March 2022, the Supreme Court ordered the petitioner to file a review before the Allahabad High Court. Following this, an instant review petition was filed before the High Court.
Now, after hearing the review petition last week, the bench of Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker and Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh issued notices to the Centre and NDMA and granted them the right to file their objection to the applicant’s delay condonation application.
As a result, the case has been scheduled for hearing in the last week of July.
It should be noted that the review petition filed before the HC, moved by Advocates Ankur Azad and Shashwat Anand claimed that the PMNRF and PM-CARES are unconstitutional and void because they are not backed by any law and are in conflict with the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), which was established by the Central Government under Section 46 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (DMA).
The petition requests that the money or funds collected in the PMNRF and PMCARES Fund be transferred or credited to the NDRF. According to Entry 10 of the Concurrent List under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, the Government does not have the authority to create a Trust unless authorised by law.
