The Supreme Court on Wednesday floated the idea of having a Central law to govern non-government organisations (NGO) receiving Government funds. Giving Centre eight weeks time to think over the proposal, the Bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar felt that without a law, it will be difficult to punish the defaulting NGOs and to hold them accountable for misusing public funds.
The comment from the Court came as part of an ongoing effort been made by the Court to clean up the functioning of NGOs across the country. After the Court had asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to identify those NGOs that failed to file their balance sheets, the results were shocking. The agency informed that less than 10 per cent of 30 lakh NGOs complied with this rule. This prompted the Court to direct the Government to issue guidelines to regulate the NGOs as it was of the view that not a single penny of public fund should be lost.
On Wednesday, the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), a public body disbursing funds under the Union Ministry of Rural Development, informed the Court that 159 FIRs have been recommended against various NGOs who were disbursed funds under various schemes in the previous years.
It had earlier blacklisted 718 NGOs for not following the due process and not submitting their accounting details. Subsequently it said it removed 15 NGOs from the black-list after they complied with the accounting norms.
The Bench, also comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said that for effective monitoring of NGOs, guidelines issued by executive will not ensure compliance. It suggested framing of a law and asked the Centre whether it was willing to enact a law incorporating the guidelines to regulate NGOs.