No tribunal needed to enforce FCRA: Centre tells Delhi HC

The Centre today told Delhi High Court that the government has a "robust and efficient" system to implement the foreign contributions regulations law as it has already imposed penalties, frozen accounts and referred to CBI and state police several NGOs for such violations.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar was also informed that there was no need for any tribunal or body for enforcement of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 2010.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain contended that setting up of tribunal would be a "wastage of precious resources in terms of money and man power, both of judiciary as of executive".

The Centre was responding to a PIL by an NGO, Association of Democratic Reforms, seeking creation of an independent body to implement the FCRA on grounds that conflict of interest hampered implementation of its provisions by the government, as political parties which allegedly violate this law, were part of the ruling establishments sometime or the other.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, alleged that implementation of FCRA appeared to be strict on NGOs, but not on politicians.
He claimed that despite a high court judgement holding the BJP and Congress prima facie guilty of violating FCRA provisions, the government had not taken any action.

The court questioned the maintainability of the PIL and sought to know from Bhushan whether it can issue any direction with regard to setting up of a tribunal.

During the hearing, the ASG contended that "at present, our system of administering FCRA is robust, efficient, just and fair and there is no need for establishing separate body or tribunal for enforcing FCRA."
"The number of court cases pending in relation to enforcement of FCRA 2010 is 12. The miniscule number of court cases indicates there is no justification for establishment of a separate judicial tribunal for enforcement of FCRA, as it may lead to wastage of precious resources in terms of money and manpower, both of judiciary as of executive," the Centre had said in their affidavit filed last year.

The Centre had contended that the NGO's petition appeared to have been preferred on behalf of various NGOs whose registration under FCRA have been cancelled for various irregularities and statutory non-compliances.
It had also said in its affidavit that "to ensure that foreign contribution is not misused or diverted, a monitoring unit in the FCRA wing has been designated to monitor the receipt and utilisation of foreign contribution".