Supreme Court gets report on NTRO funds mess

Faced with questioning by the Supreme Court on concealing information regarding the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO)’s budget and its expenditure, the Centre on Monday submitted the report by one man inquiry panel that claimed to have examined all the aspects of the organisation that’s directly controlled by the prime minister’s office.

A bench of justices RV Raveendran and AK Patnaik that had directed the Centre to file the status report on the inquiry panel report, on Monday deferred the hearing for two weeks as Justice Raveendran retires on October 14. “Let the new bench decide the issue,” observed the bench.

The NTRO is immune from audit by the comptroller and auditor general though the funds made available to it are withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund of India.

The agency’s accounts have been kept out of the CAG audit because it describes itself as ‘secret service’.

A former scientist who was associated with the NTRO, VK Mittal, moved the SC saying the agency has been allotted about Rs 8,000 crore since the financial year 2005.

He had raised the issue of misuse of secret service fund (SSF) by the NTRO, saying that “apparently the CAG has not done any auditing of SSF of NTRO as it does not come under its purview’’.