Supreme Court to decide Tuesday on transferring Delhi govt ad fund to rapid rail project

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will check on Tuesday if Delhi government was able to make arrangements of funds towards the fulfillment of its share for construction of the Delhi-Alwar and Delhi-Panipat corridor of Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) project. Otherwise, the advertising budget of the national capital government will stand transferred towards the rapid rail project.

As per the causelist published on the website of the apex, a bench of Justices S.K. Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia will continue to hear on November 28 the application filed by the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) -- a joint venture company of Govt of India and States of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh which is implementing the RRTS project.

In its application, the Corporation had said that the Delhi government by not releasing promised funds had breached its undertaking given earlier to the Supreme Court.

Hearing this, the top court on November 21 was “constrained” to direct that funds allocated for advertisement purposes be transferred to the RRTS project.

“The budgetary provision is something which the State Government should look into. But if such national projects are to be affected and against that money being spent on advertisement, we would have been inclined to direct those funds to be transferred to this project,” it said.

However, the Supreme Court kept its order in abeyance for a period of one week and said that if the funds are not transferred, the order will come into operation on November 28.

The Delhi government said that it had to hear adverse comments in the SC because funds haven't been released though the file for release of the remaining funds was approved by the Transport Minister and sent to the Finance Secretary over a month ago.

“The Arvind Kejriwal government supports the RRTS project and welcomes the Supreme Court order regarding the same," it said.

In July this year, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Sighvi, appearing for Delhi government, had assured the top court that the project’s overdue amount of Rs 415 crore will be paid within two months.