By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday threatened to summon the chief secretaries of 10 states and the union territory of Chandigarh if they fail to explain their stand on the Justice Wadhwa Committee’s suggestion on eliminating corruption in the Public Distribution System (PDS).
A bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice T.S. Thakur cautioned the chief secretaries saying they must be ready to appear before it in case they fail to file their affidavits within three weeks.
Irked by the failure of large number of states in filing affidavits, the bench issued the threat while hearing a lawsuit of 2001, seeking the court’s intervention to eliminate corruption in the PDS.
The states issued the warnings include Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Kerala besides Chandigrah.
Justcie Thakur expressed reservation against some of the contents of the report by Justice Wadhwa.
He said the court had appointed the committee seeking suggestions on how to eliminate corruption in the PDS.
But the panel had gone on to suggest what should be the benchmark for declaring a family or person as living under the Below Poverty Line and what monetary aid should be given to them.
Justice Thakur noted that these were policy matters to be dealt by the government and the courts need not interfere.