India, April 4 -- The Bombay High Court on Thursday ruled that authorities under the Maharashtra Public Trusts (MPT) Act do not have the power to force a registered public trust to change its name. The court said the law does not allow them to decide whether a trust's name is appropriate or not.

The court set aside an order that had directed the National Egg Co-Ordination Committee (NECC), a Pune-based public charitable trust, to remove the word "National" from its name. A single-judge bench of justice Sharmila U Deshmukh said the authorities had no jurisdiction to pass such an order and called the decision "unsustainable".

The case began with a complaint by animal welfare activists in April 2018. They claimed that the word "National" i...