The Supreme Court on Monday expressed concern at the trend of state governments approaching it with complaints of discrimination by the Centre, saying "let there not be a contest between Union and state".
"We see various state governments are having to approach the court," the bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta added, making oral observations.
The bench, hearing Karnataka's complaint of being denied funds amounting to Rs 18,171 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), adjourned the matter for two weeks to enable the Centre to come out with its stance.
However, on a request from solicitor-general Tushar Mehta and attorney-general R. Venkataramani, it refrained from issuing any formal notice.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Karnataka government, told the bench the state had six months ago sought financial assistance of Rs 18,171 crore from the NDRF but the Centre had not responded yet.
Karnataka says it has suffered losses of Rs 35,000 crore because of severe drought conditions. The state had last year recorded a 56 per cent deficit rainfall.
Karnataka filed its petition under Article 32 of the Constitution, intended to enforce citizens’ fundamental rights.
Mehta told the court: “If, instead of filing a petition under (Article) 32 they would have talked to us.... We know the timing of these petitions. Lordships may not issue notice, it also becomes a news.”
Justice Gavai, who headed the bench, then made the oral observations suggesting “there not be a contest between Union and state” and noting that “various state governments are having to approach the court”.
Tamil Nadu and Kerala had earlier filed similar petitions accusing the Centre of deliberately delaying or denying financial help to them.
The DMK government had last month approached the apex court accusing the Centre of delaying a grant of Rs 38,000 crore as disaster relief assistance to tide Tamil Nadu over the ravages of a cyclone and floods.
Kerala had earlier filed a civil suit with the top court accusing the Centre of reducing the state’s borrowing limit by half to Rs 15,390 crore, which it said violated “fiscal federalism”. The state accused the NDA government of targeting it for political reasons.
However, the Centre defended itself saying that if the states indulged in reckless borrowing, the sovereign rating would fall and the “entire edifice of federal structure in the country would collapse like a pack of cards”.
On Monday, Sibal said an inter-ministerial central team (IMCT) had visited Karnataka’s drought-hit districts from October 4 to 9 last year and submitted a report to the national executive committee of the NDRF under Section 9 of the Disaster Management Act.
“The action of the central government in denying the financial assistance to the state is ex facie violative of the fundamental rights of the people of Karnataka under Article 14 (equality) and 21 (life and personal liberty),” Karnataka’s petition says.
It argues that the Centre’s failure to meet its request also violated the Disaster Management Act, 2005, which made it a statutory obligation for the Union government to help the state within one month of the receipt of the IMCT’s report, submitted last December.
Of the Rs 18,171 crore sought by the state, about Rs 4,663 crore was sought towards crop loss, roughly Rs 12,577 crore towards gratuity relief for the affected families, Rs 566.78 crore for drinking water relief and about Rs 363 crore towards cattle and livestock.