Amid uproar, FCRA Bill referred to JPC

The committee will have to submit its report to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla by the last day of the first week of the winter session.

The committee will have 31 members — 21 MPs from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha. Birla will nominate 21 members from the Lok Sabha while Upper House chairperson CP Radhakrishnan will nominate 10 members from the Rajya Sabha.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai moved the motion in the Lower House to send the Bill to a joint parliamentary committee amid a din in the House, as Opposition members continued their protest seeking the Home Minister’s statement on the police action against students last month during their stir against the NEET paper leak.

The government’s move came amid widespread opposition to the Bill by various Christian organisations and the chief ministers of Mizoram, Meghalaya and Nagaland, who have expressed concern regarding some of its provisions.

Several parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress and the DMK, have also been opposing any move to pilot the draft law.

The main area of contention is the creation of a competent authority, which will be empowered to take over assets of NGOs whose licences have either expired or have been cancelled.

Introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 25 this year, the Bill provides for greater government scrutiny of NGOs and foreign funding, and explicitly bars the use of such finances for religious conversions.

The government needs a simple majority to pass the Bill.

Meanwhile, there is a likelihood that no member from the rebel TMC Lok Sabha MPs, who are yet to be recognised as a separate political entity under the aegis of the NCPI, will be a part of the joint parliamentary committee.