Supreme Court judge recuses himself from case related to MGNREGA

As the case came on board, Justice Narasimha said he had appeared in the matter as a lawyer and that the matter will have to be placed before Chief Justice DY Chandrachud to set up a fresh bench. Justice Aravind Kumar was the other judge.

Grave crisis

Justice Narasimha was elevated to the Supreme Court from bar. Advocate Prashant Bhushan appeared for the petitioner party, Swaraj Abhiyan.

The part submitted that there was currently a grave crisis being faced by crores of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA), with their pending wages piling up along with negative balances in most states.

Money shortage

As of November 26, 2021, state governments are facing a shortage of Rs 9,682 crore and 100 per cent of the allocated funds for the year have been exhausted before the conclusion of the year, it said.

This is despite this excuse of shortage of funds being a gross violation of the law, it said, and referred to the apex court judgement on MGNREGA wage payments.

Payment mechanism

The plea said directions to the Centre be issued to put in place a mechanism to ensure that states have adequate funds to implement the programme for a subsequent month.

The month when the demand was highest in the previous year should be used as the base month for which minimum funds must be provided to the state government in advance, the plea said.

Helping workers

It also sought issuance of direction to the Centre and states to comply with the instruction of May 2013 issued by the rural development ministry and ensure that workers are able to register their demand for work through technologies and get dated acknowledgement receipts for the same.

A direction be also issued to the Centre and states to comply with the provisions in the Annual Master Circular and ensure automatic payment of unemployment allowance to workers who have not been provided work within 15 days of them demanding it.

Pending dues

The plea has also sought a direction to the Centre to ensure that all pending wage, material, and administrative payments pending as of today are cleared within the next 30 days.

Swaraj Abhiyan, earlier an NGO, had filed a PIL in the apex court in 2015 seeking various reliefs for rural poor and farmers and later came up with an interim application in that plea.

(With agency inputs)