PMO funds? Don’t ask

Soon after the Union government notified the rules to implement the 2023 Digital Personal Data Protection Act, in November last year, a Gen-Z influencer Instagrammed a biting explainer in Hinglish: “On the one hand, the government has empowered itself to compel private entities to hand over people’s personal data like private chats, photos, location, and biometrics, without obtaining their consent, for protecting the country’s sovereignty and integrity. On the other hand, it has amended the RTI Act to deny them access to all personal information about public servants for protecting their privacy... Since when did our democracy start functioning like this?” she asked.

Even as we scratch our heads for an answer to this elementary question, the media has reported a recent communication from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to the Lok Sabha Secretariat. Apparently, questions about the PMCARES Fund, Prime Minister’s Relief Fund (PMNRF), and the National Defence Fund (NDF), which the PMO administers, are not admissible under the House business rules. For several years, the government has fought citizens tooth and nail to keep PMCARES and PMNRF out of the ambit of the RTI Act. Now our elected representatives are being gagged with a “thou shalt not ask!” commandment. Is Article 105 of our Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech in Parliament, due for a sabbatical? Will the Speaker bend or defend our MPs’ right to know?

The government reasons that these funds are not supported by any budgetary allocation approved by Parliament. So, questions about their affairs cannot be admitted there. RTI replies I obtained from central public sector enterprises and the data gleaned from their annual CSR expenditure reports show that between 2020-2021, they had contributed more than Rs 2,330 crore to the PMCARES Fund. The President, the first citizen of our country, is the majority shareholder in these companies. Should other citizens not ask how this money was spent during the COVID pandemic? As I am an Intervenor in the PMCARES Fund case pending in the Delhi High Court, propriety prevents me from commenting further except to say that the 40th hearing to decide whether it can be made answerable to the people under the RTI Act will be on the 1st of April!

As for the PMNRF, the Central Information Commission ruled in 2012 that names of institutional donors are not sarkari secrets. In 2015, a single bench of the Delhi High Court upheld this decision as a reasonable one and directed the PMO to respond to such RTI enquiries. In 2018, a division bench of the court gave a split decision in an appeal. One judge held that the PMNRF is like any other public authority under the RTI Act, subject only to its permissible exemptions to disclosure. The other judge ruled that it is like an NGO and no information about its affairs can be accessed under the RTI Act. They recommended that the Chief Justice refer the issue to a third judge. In 2026, we are still waiting for that judge to hear this case.

Few people are aware that the PMNRF and the NDF serve another public purpose, above and beyond those underpinning their establishment. This novel application was created by the judicial arm of the State. Both funds are used for depositing the costs which courts and tribunals impose on litigants for wasting their precious time. Since 2001, in at least 100+ cases, high courts, tribunals like ITAT, NCLT, CESTAT, and DRAT, and even the Supreme Court, have imposed costs totalling over Rs 3 crore to be deposited in these funds. In more than 35 cases, the dissenting judge of the Delhi High Court issued such orders favouring PMNRF! Are these truly voluntary contributions?

Again, not many people remember that between 1964 and 1965, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri answered at least two NDF-related questions in Parliament. One was about the money donated by ‘left communist group’ members detained in Kerala’s jails, for the country’s defence during the Indo-Pak war. Another was about more than a hundred NDF receipt books that went missing in Delhi. In 1965, his Education Minister, noted jurist M C Chagla, assured the Lok Sabha that information about contributions from Delhi’s school-going students, allegedly collected without issuing proper receipts, would be tabled soon. The claimants to Shastri’s legacy, who mostly use his birth anniversary as a counter-event for Gandhi Jayanti, would do well to emulate the high standards of transparency and accountability he set at the PMO.

The writer wakes up every morning thinking someone somewhere is hiding something.