AMN /
The Madras High Court has ordered interim stay on cancellation of environment NGO Greenpeace India’s registration by the Tamil Nadu Registrar of Societies under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. Observing that the Registrar had not followed principles of natural justice, the court granted the stay for eight weeks.
The Registrar had cancelled the permit of the organisation earlier this month on charges of violation of its Act, including alleged distortion of funding documentation by the society. The interim executive of the organisation had approached the High Court following this. The petition said, the Registrar’s order impinged the organisation’s fundamental rights to freedom of expression.
After the verdict was passed, the NGO said that the Court order was the sixth time in the last one and a half year that Green peace and its activists have succeeded against multiple attempts to restrict its operations and funding as well as attempts to shut it down.