Tell when GPF amount will be returned to staff, AP High Court asks govt

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Friday asked the state government to file an affidavit with details of its plans to repay the GPF (General Provident Fund) withdrawn from the employee accounts.

In a petition filed by the Andhra Pradesh Gazetted Officers' Association president K V Krishnaiah, the High Court said the government could not withdraw the money from the employees accounts.

The money had to be deposited back, it stated, opining that the amount could be around Rs 2,000 crore which the government used for its own needs. It also questioned the government's lawyer as to how a lowly officials could file the response when it sought its explanation as happened now, the government lawyer submitted that the principal secretary would file the affidavit. The court remarked that it would be the chief secretary who would be answerable whoever filed the affidavit.

During its last hearing too, the court wondered how the state government could withdraw money from GPF accounts of the employees. The High Court bench headed by Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice D V S S Somayajulu said that they were surprised to see the news reports on recovery of money from GPF accounts. "We find it is in violation of the interim order of the High Court and if found true, we will initiate contempt proceedings against the authorities concerned," said the bench in the last hearing.

The withdrawal of the GPF amount from their accounts came as a shocker to the employees who protested the same. The Opposition criticised the government for siphoning away of money illegally from the employees' accounts. There is an allegation that the government had also diverted the panchayat raj funds.

The other day, the Supreme Court ordered reimbursement of Rs 1,100 crore to the SDRF account which the state diverted from the Centre-released Covid funds and diverted the same to meet its welfare schemes expenditure. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has repeatedly been pointing out that the state government was diverting funds from several programmes and schemes (given by the Centre) to other expenditure. Recently, the CAG report has pointed out that Rs 41,000 crore was spent without transparency.

BJP MP G V L Narasimha Rao has already demanded a high-level inquiry into allegations of the Personal Deposit (PD) accounts which, he said, 'were being indiscriminately operated in violation of financial regulations'. Earlier, former finance minister, Yanamala Ramakrushnudu too argued similarly seeking fiscal discipline.

Narasimha Rao had written a letter to the Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan urging him to direct the state government for a special audit of PD accounts under the supervision of the CAG, in addition to an independent investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). "The money in the PD accounts is meant for use only in emergencies. It is to be used only on a limited basis for administrative convenience, not for large scale diversion of funds or for evasion of financial rules and regulations," Narasimha Rao said.