KOCHI: Wealthy land owners and farmers who make use of workers from Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) cannot be penalized as there is no provision for it, the high court has held.Justice P V Asha issued the ruling after considering a petition filed by Santhakumari of Kanjiramattom in Ernakulam through senior advocate P K Ravindranatha Menon.The ombudsman for MGNREGS had ordered the petitioner to remit Rs 42,369 after inspecting work done on her property using MGNREGS workers . This was on the basis of a telephonic complaint received by the ombudsman.Report of the ombudsman said the petitioner belonged to a wealthy family, her husband retired from the Rubber Board, and her two sons are working, with one being an engineer in the US and the other, a doctor at Lakeshore Hospital . Affluent persons will not come under the purview of marginal farmer or small farmer and workers of MGNREGS cannot be utilized, the ombudsman found. Benefit of the scheme can only be given to indebted farmers holding less than five acres, the ombudsman held while imposing the penalty.While setting aside the ombudsman award, the court said in the judgment, “Though the interpretation given by the ombudsman with respect to the purpose and intent of the scheme cannot be faulted, no provision is seen in the MGNREG Act or scheme or the instructions to ombudsman, based on which the award can be sustained.”“In the absence of any provision which empowers the ombudsman to direct recovery from a person like petitioner who was issued a job card rightly or wrongly, the award directing the petitioner to remit the cost of work is without authority,” the court added.

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