A rebel MP of ruling Janata Dal (United) in Bihar on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the policy of the Nitish Kumar government on spending money from the MPs Local Area Development scheme and the top court issued notice to the state and the Centre on the issue.

A bench of Justices D.K. Jain and Anil R. Dave admitted a PIL filed by suspended JD(U) MP Jai Narayan Nishad raising various questions on the “conflict” between the state’s policy and Centre’s guidelines on the spending of `5 crore funds allocated to an MP under MPLAD scheme every year.
Nishad is in the group of three JD(U) MPs suspended for “anti-party” activities. The other two are Magni Lal Mandal and Rajiv Ranjan Lallan.
Nishad in his PIL alleged that the Bihar CM had written a letter to the Union minister for statistic and Programme Implemen-tation in August 2011 stating that his government had discontinued with the MLA and MLC’s area development scheme and therefore, no “dedicated machinery” existed in the state for implementing the MPLAD scheme.
The CM further had stated that in view of this, the state government has to “reorient” the role of the district magistrate only to function as “regulatory and managerial authority” to oversee the work under the MPLAD scheme not directly responsible to implement it. These guidelines of the state were contrary to the MPLAD scheme norms laid down by the Union government, which makes the district magistrate responsible to execute the work on any development scheme suggested by an MP.