Ten opposition members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) reviewing the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, have written to the committee chairman and BJP leader Sanjay Jaiswal seeking a postponement of the panel’s October 12, 2026, meeting by at least four weeks to allow more time for inviting public comments on the Bill. 

In the letter dated September 29, the opposition MPs said that, given the wide-ranging implications of the proposed legislation, it is essential that the members be given more time to study the Bill and related documents before examining it. The period for receiving comments, suggestions and representations from the public and stakeholders should stay open for a minimum of four weeks, so that organisations, experts and members of the public can examine the provisions and submit views, the opposition MPs said. The additional time, they said, would also let members consider the representations before deliberating on the Bill.

The letter was signed by DMK’s A. Raja and P. Wilson, Congress’s Christopher Manickam, Hamdullah Sayeed, Viriato Fernandes and Anto Antony, Samajwadi Party’s Javed Ali Khan and Zia Ur Rehman Barq, MAITC’s Kalyan Banerjee and NPP’s James P.K. Sangma.

The request came on the day the committee held its second sitting. Members received a clause-wise briefing on the Bill from officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative Department). Domain experts and stakeholders also appeared before the committee, including representatives of the State Bank of India, law officers led by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, and lawyers from AZB & Partners and T. Nair Chambers.

The committee has to submit its report to the Lok Sabha by the last day of the first week of the Winter Session of Parliament.