Pakistan Red Crescent Society Act

This 1920 Act (originally passed as the Indian Red Cross Society Act and later renamed for Pakistan) legally establishes the Pakistan Red Crescent Society and its governance structure. Notably, the extract's own footnotes state that this Act was "later on repealed by Ordinance No. XXVII of 1981, s.2, Schedule I," so its current legal status is uncertain from this text alone and should be checked against the official record before treating it as the Society's current governing law.

Section 2 constitutes the Society, with its first members being those who had been members of the former Indian Red Cross Society and were resident in Pakistan at the time. Section 3 sets up the Managing Body — initially carried over from the old Indian Red Cross Society's Managing Body plus up to 30 members nominated by the President of Pakistan, who also serves as the Society's President and nominates its first office-bearers; a new Managing Body was to be elected by Society members within six months of the first one being constituted. Section 4 incorporates the Society as a body corporate with perpetual succession, able to hold property and sue or be sued.

Section 5 required the Managing Body to make internal rules within six months, covering membership conditions, appointment and terms of Managing Body members, representation of international committees, and general procedure. Section 6 vested in the Society property allocated to it from the former Indian Red Cross Society's assets, along with any gifts made to the Society. Section 7 governs how Society funds may be used: either the capital or income of war-related property may be used for relief of sickness, suffering, or distress caused by war (in Pakistan or wherever Pakistani forces serve), while for general (non-war) relief of sickness or suffering, only the income — not the underlying capital — of Society property may be used, applied toward the objects listed in the First Schedule.

Section 8 establishes Branch Committees, originally inherited from the former Indian Red Cross Society's provincial branches and later restructured by a 1972 amendment into Committees for Balochistan, the North-West Frontier, Sindh, and Punjab, plus a separate committee for the federal capital. Section 8(4) requires income from war-related property to be distributed annually among Branch Committees according to fixed percentages set out in the Second Schedule — as reproduced in the extract, these are Karachi Division 2%, West Pakistan 55.46%, and East Pakistan 42.54%, figures that clearly predate the 1971 separation of Bangladesh and reflect Pakistan's pre-1971 two-wing structure. Section 9 lets the Managing Body affiliate other societies with similar objects. Section 10 gives the Managing Body final authority over what falls within the Society's purposes. Section 11 lets it accept and apply gifts, and Section 12 lets Branch Committees manage their own funds and procedure, while requiring them to forward ten percent of general-purpose cash donations to the central Managing Body. The First Schedule lists the Society's charitable objects, including care of sick and wounded members of the Pakistan Forces, tuberculosis care, child welfare, nursing and health work, and ambulance services.

Given the footnote indicating this Act was repealed in 1981, and the Second Schedule's outdated East/West Pakistan percentage split, the structural and financial details in this Act should be treated as historical rather than as the Society's current governing framework; readers should verify what law or order currently governs the Pakistan Red Crescent Society.