Kanu Sarda By

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought response from Tamil Nadu and Telangana for not providing details to the CBI about all the registered NGOs in the two states. A Bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu issued notices to the two states and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks even as the CBI submitted that out of the 22,39,971 NGOs in 20 states, approximately 2,23,428 of them have filed their balance sheets with the authorities.

The CBI, which also gave the figures of Union Territories, stated that out of 5,684 NGOs, 50 have submitted their returns and sought extension of three months for compiling entire information received from states and UTs.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General PS Patwalia said the NGOs will not be eligible for any grant unless they comply with the condition of filing statement of income expenditure of last three years.

The court had expanded the scope of the PIL which was filed in 2011 by advocate ML Sharma against an NGO, Hind Swaraj Trust, run by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare. The PIL had sought probe into alleged embezzlement of funds.

CBI told the bench that Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Union Territory of Delhi have only furnished part information and reminders have been sent to them.

CBI filed an affidavit in compliance with the September 2, 2013 order and an annexure in it stated that out of 97,437 NGOs in Assam, none have filed their balance sheets.