Centre seeks four weeks to bring in legislation to regulate NGOs

The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it is considering having a legislation to give more teeth to authorities for regulating over 32 lakh voluntary organisations or NGOs in the country.

Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta informed a bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar that a final decision will be taken in four weeks.

“You have to take a fair decision as we have already passed certain directions in this regard. You have to implement them to give more teeth to the authorities. These are very serious issues,” the bench told Mehta who said he would come back to the court with proper instructions on whether the government wants to continue with the guidelines or have a legislation.

“Legislation with penal provision will give more teeth to our officials,” Mehta told the court, which said the present criminal law was sufficient to deal with defaulting organisations.

Centre has already framed guidelines to tighten the noose around NGOs.

“You have in the past taken criminal and civil action against those who misuse funds. It’s not that you cannot act under the present regime,” the court said, giving time to the Centre.

In April a high-level committee under the chairmanship of S Vijaykumar, former secretary in the Ministry of rural development, framed guidelines and rules for the accreditation of VOs and NGOs.

Under the new guidelines, Niti Aayog has been appointed as the nodal agency for the purpose of registration and accredition of VOs/NGOs seeking funding from the Centre.

The Aayog is also tasked with maintaining a database to manage and disseminate information relating to NGOs and VOs.

A three-tier monitoring system has been instituted to supervise the organisations, which will not get funds through the public fund management system (PFMS).