Apex Court grants additional 4 weeks to CBI to furnish information regarding Balance sheet filings of all NGOs

An Apex Court Bench comprising of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice A.K. Sikri on Monday granted an additional time of four weeks to the CBI, to assimilate details of all registered NGOs throughout the country and submit whether they file balance sheets before the concerned authorities.

Hearing the PIL filed by lawyer M.L. Sharma, the Bench directed CBI to write to the Chief Secretaries of the States which are not providing such details, ignoring the order of the Court in this respect.

CBI in July had submitted that all states haven’t provided requisite information yet. While Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have not provided any information, only partial information is provided by the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and Maharashtra. Read the LiveLaw story here.

The Supreme Court had expanded the scope of a PIL filed by Advocate M.L. Sharma, against Hind Swaraj Trust, an NGO run by Anna Hazare. His PIL had alleged that Hazare’s trust, which started with Rs 500 as capital on February 21, 1995, could manage a cheque of Rs 45 lakh from the Centre for the expenses for 1994-95 even a few days before its registration on April 6, 1995. It also claimed that the trust had received a cheque of Rs 65.85 lakh from the Maharashtra government for 1995-96 on May 9, 1995.

CBI was directed in September, to file the names of all the NGOs, including information whether they have filed their balance sheets including income-expenditure statements before the authority before which they are registered.

This information was to be furnished within eight weeks. CBI had requested the court to transfer the task to the states, expressing difficulty of completion. But this plea was summarily rejected by the court.

Earlier, response to RTI query filed by Asian Centre for Human Rights revealed that the Union and state governments between 2002 and 2009 released Rs. 6,654 crore to various NGOs. IB has said some NGOs pose a threat to economic security and industrial development. It has raised serious questions over the sources of the funding of such organizations.