SC gives CBI more time to collect information on NGOs

The Supreme Court Tuesday gave the CBI another three months time to collect information on all registered NGOs operating in the country and whether these NGOs have filed their balance-sheets including statements of income and expenditures.

A bench of Justice H.L.Dattu, Justice R.K.Agrawal and Justice Arun Kumar Mishra granted the additional time as Additional Solicitor General L.Nageshwar Rao told the court that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has not received any information from Gujarat and Tamil Nadu despite repeated reminders.

The court was also told that information received from Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Delhi was only partial.

The investigating agency also sought directions tom the states and union territories to forward the information called for in soft-copies through e-mail to the CBI so that it could be placed before the court.

ASG Nageshwar Rao told the court that the information received so far runs into lakhs of pages and as such the work involved is extremely voluminous and the compilation of information was in progress.

Giving the instance of the quantum of work involved, Nageshwar Rao told the court that in West Bengal alone, there are 231,000 NGOs. He said in large number of cases, no accounts or ITRs have been filed.

"Most of these NGOs have not filed their returns," he said.

The apex court Sep 2, 2013, had directed the CBI to file the names of all NGOs in the country, who are registered under the Societies Registration Act.

The court had also asked the CBI to indicate as to whether these NGOs have filed their balance-sheets including income-expenditure statement before the authorities before which they are registered.