The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the Centre as to why it granted extension of time to Gujarat to declare the state as “drought-hit” in April this year during the pendency of the court proceedings as against February, the time set earlier.
During the last hearing on April 7, the court had rapped governments of Gujarat, Bihar and Haryana for not declaring drought in their states though there is deficient rainfall and fall in production of foodgrains. Gujarat had claimed that it declared drought in certain parts of the state from April this year.
A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and N.V. Ramana, hearing a PIL filed by Swaraj Abhyan told the Additional Solicitor General P.S. Narasimha, “We want to know whether a state government can say that it will not implement a Central law which it has adopted and what is the role of the Centre in such situations.”
The ASJ said in a federal set up the Centre can only issue advisories and guidelines to the state government.
It is the sovereign and executive power of the State to declare a particular area or areas as drought hit, it added.
Except the Disaster Management Act, there is no law governing drought in the country which can be uniformly followed, Mr Narasimha said.
