The Foreign Contribution (regulation) Act, 2010 is an Indian act of Parliament, by the 42nd Act of 2010. It is a consolidating act whose scope is
Contents
to regulate the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality by certain individuals or associations or companies and to prohibit acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality for any activities detrimental to the national interest and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto."
It is designed to correct shortfalls in the predecessor act of 1976.
Assent
It received presidential assent on 26 September 2010.
Controversies
The act repeals (and replaces) the Foreign Contribution (regulation) Act, 1976
it was alleged that “US based NGOs are financing the protests KundanKullam Nuke Power Plant.”[1]
So Home ministry got in action, bank accounts of some NGOs were frozen after it was found that they were diverting money received from their donors abroad into funding protests at the Koodankulam plant.
Home ministry has cancelled some more registrations including top 8 national educational institutions such as –Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIT-Kanpur and Jamia Milia Islamia saying that these institutes are not maintaining proper FCRA accounts.
so, Unless their registrations are restored, these institutions cannot receive contributions from abroad.
The Union Home Ministry has cancelled renewal of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licences of Greenpeace India and two NGOs run by activist Teesta Setalvad who is an Indian civil rights activist and journalist. She is the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), an organisation formed for fighting for justice for the victims of communal violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002. CJP is a co-petitioner seeking a criminal trial of Narendra Modi, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat and the current Prime minister of India and sixty-two other politicians and government officials for complicity in the Gujarat violence of 2002 and whose names did not figure in any of the FIRs /charge sheets that formed the subject matter of the various Session Trials regarding the riots at that point of time
The move comes after the licences were inadvertently renewed for five years automatically online. These three NGOs are accused of prejudicial affecting public interest of the country and violation of various provisions of FCRA.[2]