Pay fish seed suppliers by Mar 9 or face court, HC warns finance secy

Hyderabad: Telangana high court on Friday expressed strong displeasure over repeated delays by the state finance department in clearing dues to private agencies that supplied fish seedlings across the state, and gave authorities a final deadline of March 9 to release the payments. If the payments are not cleared by then, the court directed Sandeep Kumar Sultania, principal secretary (finance), to appear in person on the next date of hearing on March 10. Justice T Madhavi Devi, hearing a batch of contempt petitions filed by fish seedling suppliers, also questioned why funds released specifically to clear these bills were diverted for payment of employee salaries. Refusing the state's request for more time, the court observed that the payments were unlikely to be released unless the officer was summoned to appear before it. The judge observed that since the budget had already been presented, further time was not necessary. Referring to the submission that funds were diverted for salaries, the court noted that the money had been released specifically to pay the petitioners and could not be used for any other purpose. "This is not like a household budget, where you divert funds for needs other than the planned needs," said the judge. The court declined to grant any further time and clarified that while the officer was exempted from appearing on Friday, he must appear in person if the payments were not made by Monday. Earlier, while hearing the contempt petitions on Feb 6, the judge had directed the authorities to clear the payments within four weeks and ordered Sultania's appearance if the directions were not complied with. However, state counsel informed the court that the officer was engaged in state budget preparations and expressed his inability to appear. The counsel also said the payments were pending due to a pre-payment audit and sought additional time to process them. Opposing the request, petitioners' counsel DL Pandu argued that the officer had cited the same reason during earlier hearings and continued to violate court orders. The matter was then adjourned.