High Court seeks reply from Chhattisgarh Government for not spending on cess related items
Bilaspur. The Chhattisgarh High Court ordered the state government to file a reply within three weeks on the petition filed by the main opposition BJP MLA Ajay Chandrakar and others for not spending on the items related to the corona cess collected on liquor during the Kovid period. Huh.
The double bench of Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Gautam Chordia, after hearing both the sides, on the petition filed by BJP MLAs Ajay Chandrakar, Brijmohan Agarwal, Shivratan Sharma and Narayan Chandel regarding non-expenditure of the cess collected on liquor. Ordered to issue notice to the government. On behalf of the state government, the Advocate General opposed the petition saying that it was filed for political reasons. He opposed the issue of the notice.
Corona cess of 10 percent was imposed on a pouch or bottle of country liquor and 10 percent on English liquor.
Advocates Gary Mukhopadhyay, Vivek Sharma, Abhishek Gupta and Ayushi Agarwal, appearing for Chandrakar, argued before the bench that the state government issued a notification during the Corona period for Rs 10 on a pouch or bottle of country liquor and Rs 10 on English liquor. Percentage corona cess was imposed and a total amount of Rs 653 crore was recovered from it. Not a single amount was spent on the related items nor was the amount transferred to the health department itself. At the same time, out of this amount, Rs 450 crore was transferred to the Chief Minister’s Infrastructure Development Authority. Whereas in the notification, the amount of cess was mentioned to be done in developing the infrastructure to protect the corona. This is constitutionally wrong. He requested the bench to fix the accountability and take action.
After hearing the arguments of the Advocate General in opposition to the petition, the bench, while accepting the petition, issued a notice to the state government and sought its reply in three weeks. The next hearing in the matter will be held on April 20.
