The court directed the authorities to file a detailed and exhaustive reply within four weeks and listed the case for next hearing on September 16. Terming the question regarding legal structure of PM CARES Fund “important”, the Delhi High Court Tuesday took exception to a “one-page” reply by the authorities in response to a petition seeking that PM CARES Fund be declared as ‘The State’ under Article 12 of the Constitution of India. “You have filed a reply in the case. A one page to such an important issue? It is only a one page reply. The affidavit of one Pradeep Kumar Srivastava (Under Secretary, Prime Minister’s Office). Nothing beyond that? Such an important issue and one page reply is there. Whatever the learned senior (for petitioner) is arguing, there is not even a whisper about it in the reply,” said the division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad, while addressing Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and other central government counsel. Directing the authorities to file “a detailed and exhaustive reply” within four weeks, the court listed the matter for hearing on September 16. “You file a proper reply. The issue is not that simple. We need an exhaustive reply. Learned SG, let a proper reply be there because this matter will travel to the apex court also. We will have to pass an order on each and every point raised,” added the court. The bench was hearing a petition filed by Samyak Gangwal, who has argued that that citizens of the country are aggrieved that a fund set up by the Prime Minister and with trustees like the PM and ministers of Home, Defence and Finance has been declared to be a fund over which there is no government control. In a brief reply filed to the case last year, the PMCARES Fund, a charitable trust under the law, said that the Trust’s fund is not a fund of the Government of India and its amount does not go in the Consolidated Fund of India. “Irrespective of whether the Trust is a ‘State’ or other authority within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India and or whether it is a ‘public authority’ within the meaning of section 2[h] of Right to Information Act, Section 8 in general and that of provisions contained in sub section [e] and [j], in particular, of the Right to Information Act, it is not permissible to disclose third party information,” Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, the Under Secretary at the PMO said in the reply. The question regarding the inadequacy of the response was raised by the court when it was hearing arguments of the petitioner’s counsel, senior advocate Shyam Divan. Stating that the Centre has not even chosen to file a reply in the case, Divan pointed to the mistakes in the response filed by the PMO. “I, Pradeep Kumar Srivastava … working as Under Secretary at Prime Ministers do solemnly swear ….” he read from the official response. “Is this how Delhi HC is meant to be treated? They don’t even read it,” asked Divan to which Mehta responded that it was a typographical error. Chief Justice Sharma said, “I have seen it, that is why I feel a proper and exhaustive reply is required.” Divan earlier argued that the PM CARES Fund cannot “contract out” of the Constitution and said that public officers are trustees of the PM CARES. “Can you in a state have a collector, a sub-divisional magistrate and other government officers set up a trust and say that it is all now going to be outside the government control? I don’t believe so. Can you have a state Chief Minister do this and say that I and other senior ministers are going to form a trust but this has nothing to do with the State?” he argued. He further argued that such a structure is “very destructive of good governance”. “If these kinds of structures are allowed to stand and this kind of opacity is allowed to exist under the roof of our system, it may in the future result in huge problems,” Divan argued. The petition filed by Gangwal states that the PMCARES Fund was formed by the Prime Minister in March 2020 for a noble purpose of extending assistance to the citizens in wake of Covid pandemic and huge donations were received by it. However, the plea adds that a copy of the Trust Deed was released by the PMCARES Fund on its website in December 2020 according to which it is not created by or under the Constitution of India or by any law made by the Parliament or by any State Legislature. “It is unimaginable that a Fund, a) which has been set up by the Prime Minister of India, (b) where Trustees are the Prime Minister, Defence Minister, Home Minister and the Finance Minister of India, and (c) which has its office at Prime Minister’s Office South Block, New Delhi-110011 has been declared to be a fund over which there is no Government Control,” argues the petition. It adds that the Constitution does not envisage a situation where any member of the Executive occupying any public office can establish a Trust, which is represented as a Fund set up by the Government, but “in fact does not have any Government control whatsoever”.