''Tirath Yatra'' under HC lens

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 13

In an embarrassment for the Punjab Government, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has suo motu brought under its preview the “Chief Minister Tirath Darshan Yatra”. Justice Rajesh Bindal today asked the Punjab Chief Secretary to spell out the amount earmarked for the scheme and the source of funding.

The directions came after Justice Bindal took note of non-payment of subsidy, amounting to Rs 5 crore, to eligible industrial units under a scheme floated two decades ago. Even as the Punjab government has failed to disburse this subsidy, it has earmarked funds for the Chief Minister’s scheme.

As a petition filed by Modgill Fashion Exports against the State of Punjab and other respondents, filed in 2014, came up for resumed hearing before Justice Bindal, the state counsel, on instructions from the Punjab Joint Director, Department of Industries and Commerce, Tarsem Lal Khosla, submitted that the “state would try to disburse the entire pending subsidy under the Modernisation Scheme, 1996, in the present financial year”.

Justice Bindal, expressing his dissatisfaction with the assurance furnished before the court, minced no words to say: “ The payment of subsidy of the scheme floated way back in 1996 is pending for the last two decades. The stand that the same shall be cleared within the present financial year cannot be accepted on its face value, seeing the conduct of the state.

“Recently the state government has floated a scheme, 'Chief Minister Tirath Darshan Yatra', as is being reported in the Press. Let an affidavit of the Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, be filed for the present as to how much amount has been earmarked for that scheme and the source of funding”.