CBI to compile report on such organisations within 3 months
A scrutiny by CBI of majority NGOs registered with Centre and States has revealed that most among them do not file reports of their income-expenditure statements to the respective Governments.
The CBI is expected to compile its report giving details of all such NGOs with suspect balance sheets within three months. The agency informed the Supreme Court, hearing a PIl on this issue, that all States, except Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, have supplied the data to the agency, which is in the process of collating the information.
The bench headed by Justice Hl Dattu allowed CBI further time of three months to complete the exercise. For the agency, ASG lN Rao stated that the agency had not received any data on NGOs from Gujarat and Tamil Nadu despite several reminders. The data received so far ran into lakhs of pages, he said, adding, “Most NGOs are not filing their returns (statement on income-expenditure) with the States. The Governments must be directed (to receive the statement) as their numbers are mind boggling,” Rao said.
He gave the instance of West Bengal where out of 2.34 lakh NGOs in the State, only 16,000 odd filed their reports with the State Government on the receipt and expenditure on grant. The total number of NGOs across the country is estimated to be 20 lakh.
The apex court while dealing with a PIl filed by advocate Ml Sharma had directed the CBI to prepare a countrywide report of all registered NGOs to ascertain whether they filed balance sheets before the concerned authority.
While Gujarat and Tamil Nadu were found to be the only erring States, CBI told Court that information received from NGOs in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and Maharastra was partial.
The court had expanded the scope of the PIl which was initially filed in 2011 against an NGO, Hind Swaraj Trust, run by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare alleging financial embezzlement. In September last, the Court directed the agency to file a comprehensive report giving names of all registered NGOs and details of whether they filed income returns with the Government.
Earlier, the agency had expressed difficulty in probing and collecting information on NGOs and had pleaded that the task be handed over to States. But the Court rejected this demand and allowed the agency to buy more time.