The Supreme Court on Monday granted three weeks to the Centre to file an affidavit on the contracts awarded by the Arunachal Pradesh government for various projects in the wake of allegations that the wife and other family members of chief minister Pema Khandu had benefited from the process.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta brushed aside the government counsel’s plea that the finance ministry was not under any obligation as the issue was not connected to the Union government.

“We don’t want to go into these technicalities. There is a specific direction in our (earlier) order. It is more than enough. You just comply,” the bench told the counsel, adjourning the matter for three weeks.

The bench passed the direction after advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, complained that the Centre had so far failed to file an affidavit despite specific directions to both the finance ministry and the ministry of home affairs, although Arunachal Pradesh had submitted its response.

On March 17, the apex court had directed the home and finance ministries to file detailed affidavits relating to the contracts awarded for various projects by the Arunachal Pradesh government in the wake of the allegations.

An earlier bench of then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice K.V. Viswanathan had also directed the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, besides the Arunachal Pradesh government, to furnish details on the contracts awarded and their beneficiaries.

“We must have a clear-cut answer. We want to know who the persons are and to whom the contracts are awarded. What is the process, whether tenders had been called for or not?” Justice Khanna had said.

The petitioners — the NGOs Voluntary Arunachal Sena and Save Mon Region Federation — had sought a probe by an independent agency like the CBI into the allegations of corruption in awarding contracts.

During an earlier hearing, Khandu had rebutted the allegations.