Lack of autonomy of social audit for MGNREGA challenged

Justice R Mahadevan, before whom a plea moved by Praxis Institute for Participatory Practices represented by its Chief Executive Tom Thomas came up for hearing, ordered a notice to the State.

Petitioner’s Counsel P V S Giridhar submitted that Section 17 of the MGNREA Act provides for monitoring and execution of all works by the Gram Sabha, which is required to conduct regular social audits of all projects.

Pursuant to the provisions of MGNREA and Rules, the Social Audit Society of Tamil Nadu was established in 2013. Initially by an order dated August 10, 2012, S Sattanathan, Additional Director of Rural Development was posted as director, SASTA and he established social audit offices in Chennai, other districts and blocks and recruited independent staff.

But following his retirement on November 30, 2016, Rajashree, Additional Director of Rural Development was appointed. Though these appointments were prior to the issuance of auditing standards by the Union Ministry of Rural Development, the State by an order on October 09, 2017 had appointed Rajam, another additional director and thereafter on February 16, 2018 appointed S Annamalai Premkumar as Director of social audit.

Noting that this is clearly illegal as the scheme of the Act and the rules makes it clear that the director of social audit needs to be an independent authority to insulate the process from the implementation agency, the counsel submitted that strangely in Tamil Nadu, even the chairman of the governing body of social audit is the Secretary of Rural development and Panchayat despite rules stating the Chairman shall be chosen by the State from a list of eminent persons as identified by the Centre with impunity.