MHA renews FCRA licence of 79 institutions: Missionaries of Charity, IIT Delhi, JNU

In a massive relief for Mother Teresa's charitable Trust - Missionaries of Charity (MoC), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has restored its Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration, days after cancelling it. The registration has been renewed allowing MoC to receive and utilise foreign funds in its bank accounts. 79 institutions whose FCRA licences have been renewed include -  Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIT (Delhi) apart from MoC. MHA had previously not renewed MoC's FCRA registration after it failed to meet the eligibility conditions under FCRA 2010 and FCRR 2011.

MoC's FCRA registration renewed by MHA

Celebrating the MoC's FCRA renewal, TMC MP Derek O'Brien called it the 'Power of Love'. As per the updated list of FCRA Registered Associations has been, MoC was added to it on Friday. As of date, 16,908 FCRA registered associations were active, 20,675 institutions' FCR licence stand cancelled and 12,501 licences have expired. Previously, the number of denied NGOs stood at 12,580 on December 31.

This move comes after the U.K Parliament debated the issue, seeking to know if the British government had raised the issue of blocking of overseas funds of the MoC and other NGOs with India. on December 25, MoC's FCRA registration was not renewed as “some adverse inputs were noticed”. In lieu of its rejection, MoC contacted State Bank of India (SBI) and requested it to freeze its accounts. Many Opposition leaders - Mamata Banerjee, Shashi Tharoor, P Chidambaram, Jayant Chaudhary had lamented the adverse effect MoC's beneficiaries will face, slamming the Modi govt for the 'cruel' move.

MHA extends FCRA contributions till March 2022

Amid uproar, the MHA extended FCRA registrations of 6000+ NGOs whose licences were not renewed till 31 March 2022 if they met certain conditions. MHA stated that for those NGOs whose renewal applications were rejected, the validity of the certificate shall be deemed to have expired on the date of the refusal. The association shall not be eligible either to receive foreign contribution or utilise the foreign contribution received- leaving MoC in limbo.

Earlier on the same day, MHA had revoked the FCRA license of 5,789 entities across the country, including prominent educational institutes like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Jamia Milia Islamia, IIT Delhi and Lady Shri Ram College, Indian Medical Association, Tuberculosis Association, Leprosy Mission, Delhi University. Popular temple trusts - Tirmula Tirupati Devasthanams, Shirdi Saibaba Sansthan and Ramakrishna Mission are also in the list whose FCRA licences have expired. The licences were revoked as they failed to submit the application for its renewal under the latest guidelines, despite several intimations by the ministry regarding the same. Out of all, around 179 were denied the FCRA registration as they failed to fulfill all the criteria provided by the MHA that are required to avail the license.