CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND FOOD SECURITY versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

Citation: [2011] 6 S.C.R. 744 · Decided: 12-05-2011 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S.H. KAPADIA · Disposal: Heard

Judgment (excerpt)

A 
B 
[2011) 6 S.C.R. 744 
CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND FOOD SECURITY 
v. 
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. 
(Writ Petition (C) No. 645 of 2007) 
MAY 12, 2011 
[S.H. KAPADIA, CJI, K.S. RADHAKRISHNAN AND 
SWATANTER KUMAR, JJ.) 
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment 
C Guarantee Act, 2005: 
Object of its enactment - Discussed. 
Discrepancies detected in the implementation of the 
provisions of the Act - PIL for issuance of appropriate 
D directions to authorities to ensure proper implementation of 
the Act and the schemes framed thereunder and for 
investigation to prevent diversion of funds sp·ecifical/y 
allocated for implementation of the schemes - Supreme Court 
directed CBI to conduct complete and comprehensive 
E investigation in the matter - It further directed State 
Government of Orissa, all the State Departments and 
concerned authorities of Central and State Governments to 
fully cooperate with the CBI so as to facilitate expeditious 
completion of investigation - Directions issued - NREGA 
F Operational Guidelines. 
G 
H 
CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Under Aritcle 32 of the 
Constitution of India. 
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 645 of 2007. 
Indira Jaisingh, ASG, A. Mariarputham, AG, Sikkim, T.S. 
Doabia, K.K. Venugopal, Jayshree Anand, AAG, Punjab, 
Aman Sinha, AAG, Uttarakhand, Manish Singhvi, AAG, 
744 
CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND FOOD SECURITY v. 745 
UNION OF INDIA 
Rajasthan, Prashant Bhushan, Pranav Sachdeva, Milind Kumar 
A 
Anis Suhrawardy, Gopal Singh, Manish Kumar, Gopal Singh, 
Rituraj Biswas, H.K. Puri, Priya Puri, Hemantika Wahi, Nupur 
Kanungo, S. Banerjee, Naresh K. Sharma, Aruna Mathur, Yusuf 
Khan, Avneesh Arputham, Megha Gaur (for Arputham, & Aruna 
& Co.), Sadhana Sandhu, Aman Ahluwalia, Manpreet Singh 
B 
Doabia, A. Deb Kumar, S.W.A. Qadri, D.S. Mahra, Ranjan 
Mukherjee, S. Bhowmick, S.C. Ghosh, Anil Kumar Jha, Chhaya 
Kumar, Vikas Upadhyay, A.K. Pandey, Khwairakpam Nobin 
Singh, Sapam Biswajit Meitei, Anil Shrivastav, Asha G. Nair, 
Sanjay R. Hedge, Suresh Chandra Tripathy, Vartika Sahay (for c 
Corporate Law Group), Pragyan P. Sharma, P.V.Yogeswaran, 
Ekta Singh, Kuldip Singh, Promila, S. Thananjayan, G.N. 
Reddy, Anuvrat Sharma, Edward Belho, C.M. Kennedy, Balalji 
Srinivasan, A.P. Mayee, Charudatta Mahendrakar, Rucha A. 
Mayee, V.N. Raghupathy, Shipra Shukla, Bhanwar Pal Singh, 
D 
Dr. Rajeev Sharma, M.K. Michael, Sunil Fernandes, Renu 
Gupta, Sidhan Goel, V.G. Pragasam, S.J. Aristotle, Prabu 
Ramasubramanian, Manjit Singh, Kamal Mohan Gupta, E. 
Enatoli Serna, Vijaya, Nimshi, A. Subhashini, G.N. Reddy, V. 
Pattabhiram Vadrevu, Atul Jha, D.K. Sinha, Prashant 
E. 
Chaudhary, R.K. Verma, Praveen Swarup, D.K Devesh, Sahil 
S. Chauhan, Milind Kumar, Ekta Singh and Kuldeep Singh for 
the appearing parties. 
The Order of the Court was delivered by 
ORDER 
SWATANTER. KUMAR, J. 1. This Public Interest Litigation 
has been filed by the petitioner before this Court for issuance 
F 
of appropriate directions to the respondents to ensure proper 
implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural 
G 
Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (for short the 'Act') and the 
schemes framed thereunder. The Act was enacted to ensure 
enhancement of livelihood security of households in the rural 
areas of the country by providing at least hundred days of 
guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to everv 
H 
746 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[2011] 6 S.C.R. 
A household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled 
manual work and for matters connected therewith and 
incidental thereto. The authorities appointed under the Act are 
responsible to ensure proper utilisation of the funds released 
by Union of India for implementation of the schemes framed 
s under the provisions of the Act. The Central Government issued 
guidelines, viz., NREGA Operational Guidelines in 2008 for 
proper implementation. Petitioner has prayed before us that 
proper investigation is required to be conducted into cases of 
non-compliance with the provisions of the Act, schemes framed 
c thereunder and the guidelines issued by the Central 
Government to prevent diversion of funds specifically allocated 
for implementation of the schemes framed under the Act. 
The petition has been pending before this Court for 
considerable time and certain orders/directions have been 
D issued by the Court from time to time. The Central Government 
as well as various State Governments had fifed certain 
compliance affidavits with respect to the orders/directi

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