NEW DELHI: As the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) examining the contentious Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, held its fourth sitting at Parliament House on Thursday, DMK Rajya Sabha MP P Wilson wrote to panel chairperson Sanjay Jaiswal to hold hearings in Goa and Bengaluru to allow affected communities and other stakeholders to present their views.
Wilson also raised the demand at the panel meeting, which was attended by various stakeholders, including lawyers and representatives of Christian organisations, RSS-linked firms and NGOs, among others.
The 31-member committee had earlier visited Shillong, Kochi and Chennai on November 2, 3 and 4 to consult stakeholders.
In his letter to Jaiswal, Wilson sought consultations with Christian institutions and other stakeholders from Goa, Mumbai and Karnataka, saying many of those likely to bear the consequences of the Bill lacked the means or a realistic opportunity to travel to Delhi.
The letter was signed by Congress MPs Captain Viriato Fernandes, Christopher Manickam and Hamdullah Sayeed, and Samajwadi Party MPs Zia-ur Rehman Barq and Javed Ali Khan.
Urging the committee to hold a sitting in Goa, Wilson cited the state’s 25.10 per cent Christian population and its longstanding network of churches, schools, colleges, hospitals and social service institutions. The hearing should also accommodate stakeholders from Mumbai and the Konkan region, given their proximity and close community ties, he said.
Citing figures furnished to the committee by the Union Home Ministry, the letter said Maharashtra had 1,578 active FCRA-registered associations and Karnataka had 1,355, ranking second and third nationally after Tamil Nadu.
Bengaluru was also a hub for several national-level Christian, educational and civil society organisations, and a sitting there would enable the panel to hear stakeholders from across Karnataka, it said.
Wilson flagged provisions in the proposed legislation empowering a designated authority to take over, manage and dispose of assets created from foreign contributions upon the cancellation, surrender or cessation of an association’s registration certificate.
For religious denominations and minority educational and charitable institutions, these provisions “go well beyond the regulation of foreign funds”, the letter said. They reach the ownership and administration of property held for religious and charitable purposes over generations, directly engaging rights guaranteed under Articles 25, 26, 29 and 30 of the Constitution, it said.
“Those who will bear the consequences of such provisions deserve to be heard by the Committee in person, and in their own region,” the letter said.
Referring to his earlier letter dated September 18, Wilson said that the committee had heard religious bodies and civil society organisations at Parliament House. The consequences of the Bill would be felt most acutely by individual parishes, schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages and welfare homes, the vast majority of which could not realistically travel to Delhi to present their views, he said.
He also sought public notices sufficiently in advance in English and regional-language newspapers, inviting written memoranda and requests to depose, and asked that the letter be placed before committee members at the next sitting.