HIGHLIGHTS
· NGOs and voluntary organisations must give audited accounts of utilisation of central funds, SC said
· After all, it is taxpayers' money, the bench said
· Now NGO's will claim victim hood. Call gov dictatorial. Sickulars won't be happy .
NEW DELHI: Determined to fix accountability for lakhs of NGOs that received government grants of more than Rs 6,600 crore between 2002 and 2009, the Supreme Court asked the Centre on Wednesday to explore the desirability of a new law to regulate fund utilisation by the bodies.
"Whatever be the method, we are clear that NGOs and voluntary organisations must give audited accounts of utilisation of funds received from governments. After all, it is taxpayers' money," a bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justices D Y Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said.
Pursuant to the SC's January 10 order to audit the accounts of all 35 lakh NGOs, of which less than 10% file their audited accounts regularly, the government had framed guidelines requiring NGOs and voluntary organisations to register with Niti Aayogfor accreditation to receive public funds.
The guidelines also proposed that NGOs must furnish a bond equivalent to the grant given to them, which would be encashed by the government if funds were misused or misappropriated.
On Wednesday, the bench saw merit in the suggestion of amicus curiae Rakesh Dwivedi, who said it would be better to provide a statutory framework to regulate funding of NGOs and their audit rather than administrative guidelines as proposed by the Centre.
Surprisingly, for such an important matter, not a single law officer from the Centre was present during the hearing that lasted for more than two hours.
"The Centre's counsel, P K Dey, will obtain instruction and inform the court whether the government of India would like to regulate the issue by finalising the guidelines or would like to regulate it through legislative measures," the bench said, giving the government eight weeks.
The bench asked the government not to relent and tell NGOs to account for the funds they had received for years. "Needless to mention that this order should not be treated as any restraint on the ongoing consideration of civil and criminal action against defaulting parties as contained in the affidavit filed by Capart," it said.
The government's proposal to require each NGO/VO to register with Niti Aayog did not impress the court, which said the aayog should be left to deal with important policy matters.
It also did not favour bringing NGOs under the lokpal or lokayukta and said if that was done then these two bodies would not be able to focus on corruption by persons in high positions. More than three years ago, the SC had asked CBI to undertake the NGO fund monitoring exercise on a PIL filed by advocate M L Sharma, who had accused Anna Hazare's NGO of misappropriating funds allotted by Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (Capart).
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/explore-law-for-ngos-fund-usage-sc-to-centre/articleshow/58389526.cms
