The excuse is that the fund is not a “public authority” under the RTI law. All RTI nominations are rejected using this same tactic / excuse – so oddly Modi-style that it begs the question: does this give indirect pleasure or a sense of ultimate power over whatever the PM is investigating? The PM Cares Fund corresponds to both the definitions of “public authority” and “state”, but there is reluctance to declare it!

A petition to the Supreme Court earlier this year challenged the fund’s legality while alleging that “oceans of money” were being diverted daily from it through government conduits in the name of “contributions”. In fact, PM Cares Fund is like an octopus except that this octopus has countless tentacles. It sucks money even from government-controlled funds like “Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Assistance”, which is exclusively for victims of the “Bhopal Gas Tragedy”.

The point is that the coffers of the “PM Cares Fund” are “bottomless” with “unimaginable and unfathomable amounts of public money” injected “relentlessly”. The exact amounts of “money” received may never be known or disclosed, due to the rule of non-transparency and the fact that RTI does not work with “PM Cares Fund”.

In fact, a handful of young lawyers had asked the Supreme Court for transparency and accountability in PM Cares Fund cases. “The ideals of democracy can never be realized unless there is transparency, accountability and responsiveness in governance matters…” the lawyers noted in the petition.