Indira Jaising's NGO Lawyers Collective gets interim relief

By way of interim relief, the Bombay High Court has ordered defreezing non-FCRA / domestic bank accounts of The Lawyers Collective, NGO run by noted advocate Indira Jaising​.

As per an order dated, November 27, 2016, the Union Government had canceled the registration certificate, of the NGO, on account of several violations. Further, the government directed RBI and the banks to freeze the money in the NGO's FCRA account / FCRA utilization account as well as its other accounts. The charity commissioner was also asked to initiate appropriate action, which would have resulted in the disposing off of the organisation's assets.

The Additional Solicitor General. Anil Singh, who opposed any relief to the trust in court said, “The Trustees, in breach of the provisions of section 7 of the FCRA read with Rule 24 of the said Rules received and spent foreign contributions for activities not listed in the objectives of the association.”

The petitioners argued that Union Government could not have frozen the non-FCRA accounts. They urged that no case was made out for such a drastic order, which will bring to a standstill the NGO's activities and violated their fundamental rights.

After going through the records of the case, Justice M S Sonak said “The entire functioning and the activities of the appellants, which are otherwise not alleged to be in breach of any legal provisions will stand stifled, if, such directions are to operate during the pendency of the appeal. The appellants have not only made out a prima facie
case but also the balance of convenience is in favour of grant of limited interim reliefs to them.”

The court has asked the NGO to maintain and file quarterly statements of the money utilized from the bank accounts. It also continued that the freeze order upon the FCRA Accounts/FCRA Utilisation Accounts "shall remain pending the appeal and the same is not liable to be disturbed".