HC pulls up RTC MD for affidavit

Responding to the High Court query about the contrary submissions made in different fora about dues of the TSRTC, the incharge MD Sunil Sharma on Wednesday placed an affidavit before the court stating that despite receiving excess funds from the state, in order to get more funds, they had briefed the transport minister that the government owes money to the corporation.

The division bench headed by Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A Abhishek Reddy, which had directed the RTC to file a fresh affidavit with facts on November 1, pulled up Mr Sharma, when it found that the RTC’s affidavit was contrary to the internal presentation made to the transport minister about the funds owed by the government to RTC.

The court had also directed the Chief Secretary and principal secretary, finance department, and the GHMC commissioner to present before it on November 7, as there was confusion over the submissions of affidavits on the funds owed to RTC.

Following the court’s directions, Mr Sharma and Lokesh Kumar, GHMC Commissioner, submitted separate affidavits on dues to the RTC from the state and GHMC.

Mr Sharma explained, “The transport minister was briefed about the financial position of the corporation with a purpose to request him to use his good offices to get more grants from the government and other sources for the corporation, as it was running in losses. It was shown that some amounts are yet to be released by the government.”

He also submitted that it was only due to the persuasion of the minister that the TSRTC received

`455.00 crore in the financial year 2019-20 against a budget allocation of

`550.00 crore for the full year.

Mr Sharma also explained that the RTC has received an amount of

`3,903.55 crore under different financial head of accounts during the period from 2014 to October 31 this year from the government, though only

`3,006.15 crore was owed to the RTC for the concessional passes.