Special courts to check MGNREGA fraud

For the first time in the country, the Andhra Pradesh government is launching special courts for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on November 1 to try cases of misappropriation and fraud being committed by staff during its implementation.

The special courts can impose a two-year jail term apart from ordering recovery of the amount defrauded by the accused officials if proved guilty. The courts, to be set up one each in all the 23 districts, have been created through a special enactment made by the state government recently.

They will be headed by first class magistrates and any appeal against the order passed by them will be heard in district session courts, which in turn will have to dispose of such appeals within 35 days under the state law.

“The state government had brought in its own legislation to set up special courts for this purpose as obviously we cannot amend the Central Act, which also provides for initiating criminal proceedings against the culprits,” Reddy Subrahmanyam, principal secretary, department of rural development, told Business Standard.

Setting up special courts to curb the leakages in a single government programme is unique by itself wherein the initiative comes from a state that has already been in the forefront to make use of the Centre’s flagship programme. So far, it had spent about Rs 18,000 crore.

Unlike other courts, these special courts will hold sessions in villages where the cases of fraud have been reported in execution of works, and payment of wages to rural labourers among other things.

The authorities have already prepared 23,000 cases of fraud and misappropriation involving Rs 100 crore money based on social audit conducted on MGNREGA works across the state.

“Among these, we have prioritised the cases based on the seriousness of the crime and money involved in each of these instances into A, B, C categories. The aim of this exercise is to get the accused in bigger frauds punished early on through the judicial process," Subrahmanyam said. Cases will be framed not just against the field staff but would also be against those at the higher levels in case of collusion and for their role in facilitation of the fraud, according to him.

The government feels this move would act as a strong deterrent against committing fraud by the officials and lower staff in the implementation of the programme.