Any democracy is as s as strong or as weak as the institutions that underpin its edifice." wrote, Congress MP, Manish Tewari. In his article- "How judiciary helped Hitler and Stalin in destroying political opposition", Tewari argues-"When democracy is subverted it is the institutional reliability of the judicial system that is dismantled first. A grand sweep of history bears testimony to these maxims. Whenever judicial independence is undermined, tyranny, chaos and then anarchy, in that order, are its inevitable corollaries." The Supreme Court's decision to dismiss a petition filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation(CPIL) demanding the transfer of funds from PM CARES Fund to the National Disaster Relief Fund(NDRF) raised eyebrows and questions. In short, to tackle the COVID pandemic, the Centre set up PM CARES fund and raised money from public. RTIs were filed seeking information about the fund pouring in from across the country. The PMO, which was managing the fund refused to provide any information claiming PM Cares "is not a public authority", therefore it does not come under the RTI Act. According to BBC News- "Donations poured in - from industrialists, celebrities, companies and the common man. Within a week, reports said, donations had reached 65bn rupees ($858m; £689m). The fund is now believed to have exceeded 100bn rupees." Therefore the concern on where the fund was going seemed to be legitimate. The people have the right to know how the government is using the resources it is raising from them. The question was raised since the National Disaster Relief Fund is already the operation, what was the need to create a new entity. By dismissing the petition on apparently technical grounds, a critical question which remained unanswered was that even as the government did not formally allocate money through the budget to PM cares, but it was receiving money contributed by the people of the country to fight a pandemic. Well, as the saying goes - "what's is done is done and can never be undone." Well, not at this juncture. The existing scenario, if one looks at the larger picture, it reminds one of Satyajit Ray's dystopian fantasy film-'Hirok Rajar deshe'(In the land of the Diamond King). The film was a satire against the state's oppression. The film talks about clamping down on educational institutions but Ray also creates a world of an absolute monarch and sycophants. Of course, the king has a "jantarmantar", a gadget to brainwash the people. By Sanjay Basak
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