The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Arunachal Pradesh government to file a comprehensive counter-affidavit detailing contracts awarded between 2015 and 2025 in the wake of allegations that the lion’s share of these contracts were cornered by the family members of incumbent chief minister Pema Khandu.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said it had made it clear in its earlier order that the affidavit should explain in detail the contracts for the “entire state” and not just Tawang district as was sought to be made out by the state’s counsel.

“We do not find any such confinement (order restricted only to Tawang) or limitation of the petition filed before us,” Justice Nath, heading the bench, told the counsel when the latter submitted that the state was under the impression that the details were sought only for the Tawang district.

The court said if the state did not file the details, it would have to conclude that the government had something to conceal.

The court was dealing with separation petitions filed by two NGOs, one of them represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan.

At the earlier hearing on September 8, the bench had granted three weeks to the Centre to file an affidavit on the project contracts awarded by the Arunachal Pradesh government.

The bench had passed the direction after brushing aside the Centre’s plea that the finance ministry was not a party to the case.

“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 had told the Centre’s counsel while adjourning the matter.

On Tuesday, the Centre’s stance did not come up for consideration.