Madras HC dismisses PIL seeking guidelines for scrutiny

Chennai,Feb17 (PTI) Madras High Court today dismissed aPIL, at the admission stage itself, seeking a direction to theUnion Government to formulate guidelines for scrutiny of cashwithdrawals from "Secret Service Funds" of different States.

In his petition, S.T.Varadarajulu, an Advocate, alleged''Secret Service Funds'' were not used for the purpose they weremeant to be. The money went into wrong hands for personalmonetary gains,petition alleged.

He also submitted there was no transparency in the cashwithdrawn. For the past several years, the country faced newchallenges. Despite increase in the allocation of money to thesecret fund, the police was not been able to take control ofsituations and intelligence failures were very common,thepetitioner alleged

Varadarajulu also sought a direction to call for therecords from the Comptroller and Auditor-General of Indiapertaining to the funds for Tamil Nadu for the last five yearsand direct a CBI probe into the utilisation of the money sothat guilty officers could be prosecuted.

Dismissing the Petition, a Division Bench, consisting ofJustices Elipe Dharma Rao and D.Hariparanthaman, said thoughallegations had been made in the affidavit, no material insupport thereof had been produced.

The petitioner had not indicated the provision of law underwhich the fund had been created to indicate how the money hadto be spent,the judges said.

The court said the petitioner�s earlier prayer had beendismissed last year by the Supreme Court last,which observedthat it could not be acceded to in the absence of anyprovision of law. The Bench also said the prayer seeking adirection to the Centre to ensure that steps were taken toformulate guidelines could not be granted since it was for theLegislature to frame laws/guidelines.

The ''secret service funds'' relate to allocation of moneyby the government to the state police department.