The executive orders issued by the State government to transfer the funds of various departments and public sector undertakings (PSUs) to banks are reported to be in violation of the provisions of the treasury code.
Official sources told The Hindu here that the direction to transfer the grants, subsidy as well as their own funds, and the earnest money deposit of civil works in government to banks was implemented through executive orders. The system of issuing executive orders is a practice in vogue for expeditious implementation of government decisions. Many such orders are being issued regularly too.
On issuing an executive order without amending the rules, the government is bound to go in for a statutory amendment to the rules by placing it before the subject committee and then getting the concurrence of the Assembly itself. The clearance of the Assembly should be secured in the first immediate session after issuing the order. The current practice is to issue an executive orders for enforcing decisions and on finding that it is a violation of the rules and procedures, the government will rescind the order. But by then the decision will be implemented and hence, the revoking of the order will not serve any purpose. The orders issued for transferring the government funds from the treasury to banks are being cited as a case in point. Once the financial crisis intensified and the coffers dried up, the decision invited public flak. The crisis became one of the serious issues in the Lok Sabha election campaign and the government had no other option but to repeal its order and issue a fresh one to heads of departments to resume the funds parked in banks with immediate effect. The delayed directive did not yield any palpable outcome and a lion’s share of the funds still remains with the banks.
Moreover, the practice of issuing and revoking of orders was reported to have cast serious aspersions among the heads of departments and other officers, sources said.
