Kerala High Court on Wednesday pulled up the Centre for demanding ₹132.61 crore in airlift charges for rescue operations carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF) in the state since 2006.

After going through the bill submitted by the counsel representing the Centre, the high court maintained that the Wayanad airlifting charges amounted to only ₹13 crore. It also pulled up the Centre and wanted to know the rationale behind sending bills dating back 18 years.

The high court also assumed the role of the "interlocutor" as it took up a plea filed by the Kerala government against the Centre's delay in releasing financial assistance for the twin landslides at Chooralmala and Mundakkai in Wayanad on July 31.

The office of then Kerala chief secretary V. Venu had on November 2 received a letter with the subject "Settlement of outstanding airlift charges" that contained tabulated data of the bills "not cleared" by the state government for the rescue work by the IAF.

A major chunk, over ₹100 crore, of the allegedly outstanding bills are for the rescue operations during the 2018 floods that devastated the state. It also contains bills of over ₹13 crore for the IAF operations in the wake of the landslides that wiped away three villages in Wayanad.

The high court on Wednesday asked the Centre if it could exclude around ₹120 crore from the ₹132.6 crore demanded as airlift charges.

It said the Kerala government already had around ₹61 crore in its State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) account after accounting for existing commitments and if ₹120 crore was freed up, it would have ₹180 crore for immediate utilisation towards rehabilitation of the landslide victims in Wayanad.

The lawyer for the Centre said that the Centre's permission was required to temporarily free up the ₹120 crore and that the Union government has to relax the SDRF norms to enable utilisation of the ₹180 crore for rehabilitation.

The bench, thereafter, asked the Centre to consider granting the relaxations to enable the state government to utilise the aforesaid amount.

Additional inputs from PTI