3 days ago
9
ARTICLE AD BOX
3 min readNew DelhiFeb 10, 2026 06:25 AM IST
The fund was registered as a Public Charitable Trust and its trust deed has been registered under the Registration Act, 1908, at New Delhi on March 27, 2020.
The Congress on Monday criticised the government for allegedly interfering in the functioning of the legislature.
This comes after The Indian Express reported on February 9 (Monday) that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), in a letter dated January 30, told the Lok Sabha Secretariat that questions and matters related to the three funds — PM CARES, the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) and the National Defence Fund (NDF) — are not permissible under Rule 41(2) (viii) and 41(2) (xvii) of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha.
Congress MP and party general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal said it was “deeply concerning” how the PMO was “dictating the business” of the Lok Sabha, “which should operate independently so that the government is held accountable by the people’s representatives”.
“We demand that the PM (Narendra Modi) himself answer these grave questions on the floor of the House and be subject to scrutiny regarding the massive funds collected through the mysterious
PM CARES fund,” said Venugopal, quoting The Indian Express report.
A senior BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, however, pointed out that even the PMO under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the UPA regime had “rejected RTI petitions filed seeking details about the donors and beneficiaries of the PMNRF from 2009 till 2011.”
“The PMO under Manmohan Singh refused (the petition) on the ground that sharing the information threatened the privacy of the fund’s donors and beneficiaries,” he said.
Story continues below this ad
“The UPA used this same argument even in the Central Information Commission (CIC) to prevent disclosure of information. Not only did the CIC uphold that donors under PMNRF need not be revealed, the Delhi High Court also upheld it,” the BJP leader said.
Congress media and publicity department chairman Pawan Khera posted on X, “Democracy’s oxygen saturation levels are falling rapidly.” Congress chairperson for social media and digital platforms Supriya Shrinate said it was “unbelievable” that even Parliament cannot question the government where and how lakhs of crores of rupees were being spent.
Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express. During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state. During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute. Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor. Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor's degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. ... Read More
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
English (US) ·