On Wednesday, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions challenging some elements of PM Cares, the public charitable trust headed by Prime Mini...
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions challenging some elements of PM Cares, the public charitable trust headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that aims to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the trust began to appeal to the public for donations after it was launched at the end of March, concerned citizens have requested information about how much money the entity has received and what it is being used for. By dismissing the petitions, the Supreme Court has, without providing any substantial reasoning, sidestepped the question of scrutinising donations to PM Cares.
PM Cares – the acronym for Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations – was set up in with the stated objective of being a “dedicated national fund” to deal with “any kind of emergency or distress situation”.
The fundamental aspect of the legal challenge to PM Cares was that unlike the National Disaster Response Fund, which is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the finances of the new initiative will be scrutinised by a private auditor. This is because PM Cares is a trust and not a statutory fund.
The call for PM Cares to be subjected to greater scrutiny rests on several arguments. One, since the...
