Assessment of Administration of Charitable Trusts In Maharashtra A Critical Analysis of Law

Abstract

There are broadly two types of trusts recognized in India, i.e. private trusts and public trusts. The private trusts are governed by various enactments like the Indian trusts Act, 1882. Public trusts are bifurcated into two, i.e. charitable trusts and religious trusts. The public trusts are governed by the Charitable and Religious Trust Act, 1920, the Religious Endowments Act, 1863, the Charitable Endowments Act, 1890, the Maharashtra Public Trust Act, 1950, etc. The public trusts are open for inspection, questions and details of its trustees, management and purpose, and since the trusts are in the public domain, special care should be taken to ensure that transparency, effectiveness and utility of such trusts are not diminished and continue to serve the beneficiaries for whom such Trust is set up. There is no central act to govern public trusts, but various states have enacted their separate Acts according to their conditions and administration. newlineAs the mechanism to assess or to find out efficiency of the administration of the charitable organisation is not much effective, their activities cannot be vouched properly. The day-to-day administration in respect of the funds received, investments, receipts or payments, audits, legal and statutory compliances, and documentation is not dealt with seriously. Hence, to find out the grass-root reality, the administration of a charitable organisation was assessed and looked into by the researcher. The various compliances required on the part of state and central governments have also been studied and a review as to whether those have been complied with or not. This research also explores the procedure of registration of the charitable trusts; evaluated the sufficiency of administrative mechanisms created for regulating charitable trusts, and studied the working of charitable trusts in Maharashtra with special reference to compliances, and the mechanism required for the same.