The State Government on Wednesday informed the Madras High Court that there was no move to impose a financial emergency in Tamil Nadu although the State’s finances were under stress.
Earlier this month, angered by the State’s procrastination in sanctioning funds for the judiciary, a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice S.K. Kaul, Justices T.S. Sivagnanam, and R. Mahadevan had questioned if there was a financial emergency in Tamil Nadu and whether the State intended to declare so. It had called for a report on the issue.
Responding to the court’s direction, Additional Chief Secretary, Tamil Nadu Finance Department, submitted an affidavit explaining that the State government has no intention of declaring financial emergency. “It is a fact that the State’s finance has been under stress for the last two to three years mainly due to dip in tax revenue against the projection,” the official said.
For the year 2016-17, the State projected a revenue deficit of Rs.15,854 crore for the whole year, but up to October 2016 itself, the deficit has touched Rs.15,652 crore, he added.
Noting that though the government is resorting to control of revenue expenditure in all other departments, it has not controlled or reduced allocation for judiciary, the officer said, “From November 1 to till date, the Finance Department has given concurrence for 72 proposals of the High Court involving Rs.278.56 crore.”
Recording the submissions, the Bench comprising Chief Justice S.K. Kaul, Justices T.S. Sivagnanam, and R. Mahadevan directed the State government to file a status report in chart form on the number of proposals pending, cleared, likely to be cleared and the schedule for the clearance of remaining proposals.
Earlier, advocate ‘Elephant’ G. Rajendran, whose Public Interest Litigation petition, had led to the court castigating the government, argued that this is the right time to implement complete separation of judiciary from the executive as contemplated in Article 50 of the Constitution.
“Though the government has now cleared some proposals of the High Court, there is much more to be done. It is unfortunate that the High Court which is an autonomous body is forced to rely on the State government for meeting its financial requirements. This is a clear violation of Article 50 of the Constitution which provides for separation of judiciary from the executive,” he contended.
Separately, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation in an affidavit referred to the proposal for allocation of 0.57 acres of land to the High Court, and submitted that 32 bus routes are operated from the terminus with 134 services catering to over one lakh passengers daily.
“Moreover, only 0.36 acres of the land is left with the Corporation as the remaining part of it has been surrendered to the Metro Rail Project,” it said.
Stating that the court intends to have an independent verification of the fact that the terminus is really used for public service, and to ascertain whether there can be an alternative which may result in release of the land to the High Court, the Bench directed the Vice Chancellor (in-charge) of Anna University to nominate a team of experts to study the aspect and submit a report to the court before January 12, 2017.
