Bengal AG denies 'misuse' of Central funds

Kolkata, Feb 7

West Bengal Advocate General S. N. Mukhopadhyay on Tuesday denied allegations of misuse of funds provided by the Central government to state.

He said this when a division bench of the Calcutta High Court was hearing a PIL filed by former journalist and BJP's state general secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay alleing that as per the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the total quantum of funds misutilisation is to the tune of Rs 2.29 lakh crore, as there is no proper utilisation certificate of such a huge expenditure.

The state advocate general said that the CAG report, that has been referred in PIL was presented in the West Bengal assembly on March 17, 2022, is currently under consideration of the House.

"The matter is under consideration of the state assembly and hence it would be unjust to continue with the hearing in the matter. There are utilisation certificates for each and every expenditure of the Central funds. They will be produced in the court in time," the advocate general said.

The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, ordered the state government to submit its point in the matter in the form of an affidavit. The next hearing in the matter has been scheduled on April 13.

The PIL was filed by Jagannath Chattopadhyay on January 23, and on the next day the division bench ordered that the state finance secretary Manoj Pant and the CAG should be parties to the case.

Recently, senior advocate of the Supreme Court and BJP Rajya Sabha member Mahesh Jethmalani also issued a Twitter message on this particular PIL, in which he said there is a hint of yet another major scam in West Bengal.