A.S. Oka, J.

1. Very important issues have been raised by these two Public Interest Litigations. By these Petitions attention of the Court is invited to various illegalities and irregularities committed while collecting the donations/ funds/articles for the benefit of the persons affected by the natural and other calamities. PIL No.149 of 2009 invites attention of the Court to alleged large scale fraud committed by some of the Co-operative Sugar Societies Factories and other entities while collecting funds for Kargil war heroes and for the families of the deceased soldiers in Kargil war, in the name of “Warna Bharatiya Sena Madat Nidhi”.

2. As far PIL No.148 of 2009 is concerned, it will be necessary to make a reference to orders passed by this Court from time to time.

Paragraphs 1 of order dated 21st January, 2010

“1. The petitioner by the present petition has drawn attention of this Court to collection of monies by various co-operative institutions in the District of Kolhapur for the Kargil martyrs. According to the petitioner, the said money, though collected has not been accounted for. In the light of that, the Collector of District Kolhapur and the Joint Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Kolhapur, to file an affidavit explaining firstly whether the monies had been collected by (1) Shri Warana Sahakari Bank Ltd., (2) Tatyasaheb Kore Warna Co-operative Sugar Factory Ltd., (3) Shri Warana Sahakari Dugdh Utpadak Prakriya Sangh Ltd., (4) Warana Bazar, (5) Tatyasaheb Kore Institute of Engineering & Technology Warananagar, (6) Warana Vidya Mandir, Warananagar, (7) Tatyasaheb Kore Military Academy, Vinaynagar and (8) Warana Bhartiy Sena Madat Nidhi and secondly, what amounts collected and the amounts disbursed, if any.”

Paragraph 2 of order dated 25th March, 2010 reads thus:

“2] The case of the petitioner in the present petition is that respondent No.12 has collected substantial amount from respondent Nos.6,7 and 8 for donating the same to Soldiers who suffered during Kargil war and the said amount collected has not been given to the Defence Authority for the said purpose.”

The twelfth Respondent in PIL No.148 of 2009 is Warna Bharatiya Sena Madat Nidhi.

3. On the basis of order dated 25th March, 2010, the twelfth Respondent deposited a sum of Rs.91,81,633.94/- with the Registry. In the order dated 16th August, 2013, there is an observation made that the twelfth Respondent has collected monies in the name of the widows of Kargil Martyrs and the money has not been utilized for the purpose for which the same was collected. In fact, the said order takes a note of the stand taken by the twelfth Respondent on oath that the said funds would be utilized for setting up hostels and schools for the children of soldiers, for establishing base camps for training of NCC cadets and other such purposes. Paragraphs 2 and 4 of the said order dated 16th August, 2013 read thus :

2. The Petition highlights the dangers of allowing private entities to collect moneys in the name of laudable social objectives without regulation. Those who donate moneys do so in the hope that the donations will be used in furtherance of those objectives. However, in the absence of any regulatory mechanism provided by the State, this prima facie becomes a device for the generation of funds from the public and for their utilization for completely extraneous purposes. The Fourth Respondent was, in fact, at the material time, a member of the Legislative Assembly and was a Minister in the State Government. The State Government cannot allow such a state of affairs to come to pass by turning a blind eye to the collection of funds, ostensibly, in the name of laudable national purposes such as to rehabilitate the victims of natural calamities or, as in the present case, war widows. As a matter of fact, the moneys are diverted for other purposes.

4. Since the moneys have now been deposited in Court, we direct that the Registrar (Judicial-I) shall, upon making due enquiries with