HC restrains Govt from giving grants to NGOs without UC

HC restrains Govt from giving grants to NGOs without UC
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 24: The Delhi High Court today restrained various ministries and departments from advancing grants to non-government organisations (NGOs) unless they produce a utilisation certificate (UC) from authorites for the money given earlier.

Issuing notice to the Cabinet Secretriat, Ministry of Finance and Comptroller and Auditor General, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Arijit Passayat and Justice D K Jain directed them to file replies by December 12 to a petition challenging further grants to those NGOs which had not utilised the money advanced earlier.

The interim direction to the Centre was issued after the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) alleging that over 30,000 NGOs had not accounted for Rs 7,535 crore given to them by the government during the past several years.

The PIL alleged that ten major ministries and their departments had yet to receive certificates on utilisation of funds from over 22,000 NGOs for the money advanced even before 1995.

These ministries and departments had failed to perform their statutory duty of maintaining financial discipline, the PIL by advocate B L Wadhera said while furnishing a list of the ministries, which included Agriculture, Commerce, Taxtile, Civil Supplies, Chemical and Fertilizers, Finance, Food Processing, Education, Industry and Youth Affairs.

The petitioner also sought a direction to the Government to make rules for production of UC by NGOs before seeking further financial grant.