Karnataka govt to revisit shelved law to regulate trusts

The state government will revisit a shelved law that will govern the functioning of trusts that run educational institutions and temples, Law Minister J C Madhuswamy said Monday.

The Karnataka Public Trusts Act, 2011, was withdrawn after it was passed in the legislature, Madhuswamy said.

“Currently, we don’t have an Act for trusts,” Madhuswamy lamented. “We don’t have a law that defines what a ‘trust’ or ‘trustee’ is. For instance, if a trustee takes a unilateral decision and sells land belonging to a trust, what do we do? The lack of legislative clarity is making it difficult for us during litigation,” Madhuswamy said.

“I have already discussed this with the Revenue Minister and we will set the ball rolling on this,” he said, adding that the government will try to table the Bill in the 4-day legislature session scheduled to commence February 17.

The Karnataka Public Trusts Act was withdrawn as there was “an error in stipulating the fee that a trust had to pay to the government,” Madhuswamy said.

Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri is keen to earmark one entire day of the state legislature to discuss the Constitution, Law Minister J C Madhuswamy said. “A special session was to happen in November to coincide with Constitution Day, but we declined as the bypolls were to be held. So, any one day between March 2-5 can be allotted to discuss the Constitution,” he said. The 2020-21 budget is slated to be presented on March 5.