NGOs under SC scanner, CBI directed to file report on them

NEW DELHI: NGOs getting government aid have come under judicial scrutiny with the Supreme Court asking the CBI to provide details about such registered organisations and their financial statements on a PIL seeking probe into alleged embezzling of funds.

A bench comprising justices H L Dattu and M Y Eqbal asked the agency to file a detailed affidavit within eight weeks by collecting balance sheets and annual reports of over 800 NGOs.

" CBI Director is directed to file names of all NGOs registered under the Societies Registration Act and if they have filed balance sheets before the concerned authority," the bench said.

The apex court expanded the scope of the PIL which was filed in 2011 against an NGO, Hind Swaraj Trust, run by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare.

When advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, who has filed the PIL, raised the issue of alleged siphoning off of funds granted by the government to Hazare's trust in 1995, the bench said he should not be concerned with one NGO.

"Why are you concerned only about one person. We are not concerned about individuals and we would go step by step," the bench observed.

The Centre is also one of the respondents in the PIL in which the advocate had provided the list of NGOs. The petition had alleged that Hazare's Trust had got crores of rupees illegally from Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART).