Indian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can be set up under various Indian laws.

Types of legal entities

The different legal entities under which civil society organisations can register themselves are:

Registered societies

Societies Registration Act, 1860 The Societies Registration Act, 1860 is a legislation in India which allows the registration of entities generally involved in the benefit of society – education, health, employment etc. The British Indian Empire, with a wish to encourage such ...

is a Central Act for registering not-for-profit organisations. Almost all the states in India have adopted (with modifications, if any) the Central Act for creating state-level authorities for registering various types of not-for-profit entities. According to the Act, any seven persons who subscribe to the Memorandum of Association (MOA) can register a society. The memorandum should include the name of the society; its objectives; names, addresses and occupations of the members subscribing to it as well as the first governing body to be constituted on registration.

Trust

Public trust

Public trusts can be created for public charitable purposes. There is no All India Level Act for setting up public charitable trusts. Some of the states in India have enacted the Public Charitable Trust Act, while most states in India do not have a trust Act. An

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

can be created only under a public trust Act.

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

and

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

have independent state-level public trust Acts. States like

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...

and

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

do not have any Act to register a public trust. A trust can be registered in one state, but the same has the scope to operate in any number of states. In the statesof

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

and

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

, all organisations that are registered as Society are by default also registered as public trusts under Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950.

Private trust

A private trust, created under and governed by the Indian Trusts Act of 1882, aims at managing assigned trust properties for private or religious purpose. A

private trust A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settl ...

does not enjoy the privileges and tax benefits that are available for public trusts or NGOs.

Non profit companies

Conferring of

corporate A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and re ...

personality to associations that promote cultural and charitable objectives, but exempting them from some cumbersome requirements (which are essentially for regulation of business bodies but are difficult for compliance by non-profit companies), are the noteworthy features that are provided under the

Companies Act, 2013 The Companies Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of India on Indian company law which regulates incorporation of a company, responsibilities of a company, directors, dissolution of a company. The 2013 Act is divided into 29 chapters containin ...

. According to section 25(1) (Companies Act, 1956): "Where it is proved to the satisfaction of the Central Government that an association is about to be formed as a limited company for promoting commerce, art, science, religion, charity or any other useful objectives, intends to apply its profits, if any, or other income in promoting its objectives, and to prohibit the payment of any dividend to its members, the Central Government may, by license, l direct that the association may be registered as a company with limited liability, without addition to its name of the word "Limited" or the words "Private Limited".

Comparison between a trust, a society and a non-profit company

Types based on use

Co-operative societies

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, cooperative societies are regarded as instruments to mobilise and aggregate community effort to eliminate layers of middlemen in any

product Product may refer to: Business * Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem. * Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution Mathematics * Produ ...

service Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a pu ...

supply chain In commerce, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products to customers through a distribution system. It refers to the network of organizations, people, acti ...

hence resulting in greater benefit sharing for the

grassroot A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

farmer, worker or

artisans An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, s ...

. The Cooperative Credit Societies Act, 1904 enabled formation of cooperatives for supplying to farmers cheap credit and protect them from

exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour ** Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery ** Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment *Exploi ...

in the hands of the moneylenders. The cooperative act 1912 expanded the sphere of cooperation and provided for supervision by central organisation.

Multi-state co-operative societies

The Multi-state Co-operative Societies Act, 2002 which substitutes the earlier

statute A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...

of 1984, facilitates the incorporation of cooperative societies whose objects and functions spread over to several states. The act provides for formation of both primary (with both individual and institutional members) and federal cooperatives (with only institutional memberships). Any application for the registration of a multi-state cooperative society, of which all the members are individuals, should be signed by at least fifty persons from each of the states concerned. In case of a society of which members are cooperative societies, it should be signed by duly authorised representative of at least five such societies registered in different states.

Trade unions

Trade union means any combination, whether temporary or permanent, formed primarily for the purpose of regulating the relations between workmen and employers or between workmen and workmen or between employers and employers, or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business, and includes any federation of two or more Trade Unions.

Religious bodies

Religious bodies are frequently registered as NGOs.

Laws governing NGOs in India

Controversy

Foreign Funding Allegation

Intelligence Bureau, in a report accused "foreign-funded" NGOs of "serving as tools for foreign policy interests of western governments" by sponsoring agitations against nuclear and coal-fired power plants and anti-GMO agitation across the country. The NGOs are said to be working through a network of local organisations to negatively impact GDP growth by 2–3%. The report says,

A significant number of Indian NGOs funded by donors based in US, UK, Germany and Netherlands have been noticed to be using people-centric issues to create an environment, which lends itself to stalling development projects.

It alleged that Greenpeace was leading a "massive effort to take down India's coal-fired power plant and coal mining activity" by using foreign funds to "create protest movements under 'Coal Network' umbrella at prominent coal block and coal-fired power plant locations in India". The Intelligence Bureau said the foreign NGOs and their Indian arms were serving as tools to advance Western foreign policy interests. "Greenpeace aims to fundamentally change the dynamics of India's energy mix by disrupting and weakening the relationship between key players," the IB report said. In April 2015, the Government of India shared a list of over 42,000 NGOs with Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to check suspicious foreign funding amid the crackdown on some top international donors for flouting the

Foreign Contribution (regulation) Act, 2010 The Foreign Contribution (regulation) Act, 2010 is an act of the Parliament of India, by the 42nd Act of 2010. It is a consolidating act whose scope is to regulate the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality by ...

. These 42,273 NGOs were put under watch after intelligence reports claimed that several charity organisations are diverting funds for purposes other than the permitted use of foreign contribution. The list includes

NGOs A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

operating in cultural,religious, social, economic and educational fields. For the first time, the government has clearly defined the sectors in which it has listed

Christian missionaries A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as ...

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...

and Muslim religious groups receiving foreign contribution besides other activities of NGOs in which funds are claimed to be utilised. There is also suspicion that money launderers could use the legitimate route to wire illicit money. Many of them are Christian Missionaries and other religious groups who are found to evade taxes. Following the enquiry, permits of about 8,875 NGOs have been revoked for a variety of reasons ranging from non-filing of returns or non-compliance with Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).

References

External links

* * For reading about the role of the Indian NGOs in ameliorating the hardships of child-labourers, one can consult Sreeparna Chattopadhyay's ''The Samaritans for Child-labourers''(

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

: Authors Press, 2021) () {{DEFAULTSORT:Non-Governmental Organizations In India . . Law of India