Wilfred D'Costa from INSAF NGO said that got the email saying license refused, no reasons were given.
As many as 25 non-government organisations or NGOs have been denied licenses by the Ministry of Home Affairs to get foreign donations for allegedly being involved in "anti-national activities".
Most of these NGOs earlier had a license under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act or FCRA which is issued by the Home Ministry.
The renewal process of FCRA licenses for NGOs, which ended last month, brought down the total number of NGOs with permissions to get foreign funds from 33,000 to a little over 20,000. Close to 12,000 NGOs, which had this license before did not even apply for renewal.
Around 1,700 NGOs licenses have been put on hold till they provide more documents by end of next week.
However, environmental non-profit Greenpeace and Gujarat activist Teesta Setalvad's Sabrang Trust, both of whose licenses had been cancelled earlier, have been granted renewal.
Two of the NGOs whose have been denied licenses - Peoples' Watch and INSAF - have decided to go to court against the government refusal.
Wilfred D'Costa from Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), an NGO which works on issues of displacement due to industrialization, said they went to court even before the mail informing them of the refusal. "We got the email saying license refused, no reasons were given," he said.
Tamil Nadu-based NGO Peoples' Watch which had been at the forefront of protests against the nuclear plant at Kudankulam has also put in a petition against the central government order in the Delhi High Court.
"Close to 12,000 NGOs did not even apply for license renewal this time. Yes some of them were defunct, but a lot of them see the current scrutiny process under FCRA not as scrutiny but as harassment," Amitabh Behar of National Foundation of India said.