The Supreme Court on Friday, March 6, ruled that the government cannot stop foreign funding of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) supporting public causes. The court ruled that the ban on receiving foreign contributions under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules (FCRA Rules) should apply to only those organisations that have a political goal.
A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Deepak Gupta said that organisations that did not have a political goal and that supported a public cause through legitimate means of protest and dissent could not be penalised by declaring them “an organisation of political nature”.
“Support to public causes by resorting to legitimate means of dissent like bandh, hartal etc. cannot deprive an organisation of its legitimate right of receiving foreign contribution. Any organisation which supports the cause of a group of citizens agitating for their rights without a political goal or objective cannot be penalised by being declared as an organisation of a political nature,” the court ruled.
However, the bench made it clear that those organisations used by political parties for channelling foreign funds cannot escape the severity of the law, provided that there is concrete evidence to back those claims.
“In that event, the central government shall follow the procedure prescribed in the Act and rules strictly before depriving such organisation the right to receive foreign contributions,” the bench said.
The SC made the judgement while hearing an appeal by Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), an NGO, which challenged the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act and pointed out that the grounds provided in section 5 for declaring an organisation as a political organisation were vague.