Amnesty created for-profit entities to receive foreign funds for NGO work: CBI
New Delhi: According to the 80-page FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is largely based on the investigation conducted by the Enforcement Directorate, Amnesty International's Indian entity had created four non-FCRA entities in the country to receive foreign funding after the Ministry of Home Affairs had cancelled their requests for an FCRA license following "adverse reports from security agencies".
According to a letter to the Foreign Exchange Department of the Reserve Bank of India from the MHA, the Ministry reserved the right to cancel the FCRA license of entities participating in activities "detrimental to the national interest and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto".
Initially, the MHA had written to the RBI, from where the report was handed over for investigation to the ED through the Department of Revenue. After the ED started its probe under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, it sent a report of its findings back to the MHA in December 2018, after which the case was entrusted to the CBI for investigation through the Department of Personnel and Training.
The ED's findings in the case purportedly show that Amnesty India had set up four non-FCRA entities - two Private Limited companies and two Trust companies to receive around Rs 51 crore of foreign funds from Amnesty International (UK) as their application to receive FCRA funds had been denied by the MHA after 2011-12. The CBI's case against Amnesty entities in India for allegedly violating the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act accuses Amnesty of setting up the non-FCRA entities to continue receiving foreign funding and expand their NGO activities in the country.
According to records accessed by the Enforcement Directorate, Amnesty International India Pvt Ltd had previously been registered as Social Sector Research Consultancy and Support Services (Pvt) Ltd and entered into 45 contracts with Amnesty International (UK) to provide consultancy and support service to the social sector with an emphasis on human rights projects.
As per records of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the name of the company was changed to Amnesty International India Pvt Ltd (AIIPL) on June 16 of 2015, but this entity was already receiving contracts for human rights projects across the country since as early as October 2013.
The ED's findings in the case show that AIIPL, a for-profit company was infused with foreign funding through Foreign Direct Investment and other methods to conduct social, charitable and human rights activities.
Contract details unearthed by the ED after raids at Amnesty premises in the country showed that AIIPL had received contracts worth around GBP 5,95,367 for an "Access to Justice" project to be conducted in Jammu and Kashmir.
Moreover, the company had received contracts worth GBP 777,700 to conduct social activities with respect to Corporate Accountability in the Indian Coal sector and its human cost. In addition, the company was given social contracts worth GBP 180,967 for working on women's rights in India, and contracts of GBP 50,200 for working on the rights of migrant workers in India.
The financial probe agency has also found that AIIPL had received contracts worth GBP 3,32,500 to work on issues relating to the 1984 Sikh Massacre, specifically to mobilise all means available to them to make sure that the issue becomes key ahead of the Punjab election in 2017 and gets included in the elections manifestos of the time.
However, the CBI's case here is not that these activities were undertaken by Amnesty's companies. The FCRA violation case that the central agency has registered specifically looks at how the money for these activities was received and whether they were received through any illegal means. Moreover, the CBI has alleged that Amnesty went around the FCRA rules because they were not getting the appropriate permissions from the MHA and set up private limited companies to continue their NGO work, which is a violation of the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act.
According to statements of Shobha Mittal, founder Trustee of Indians for Amnesty International Trust (IAIT), one of the two Amnesty India Trusts and Raj Kishor Kapil, the Chief Operating Officer of the Trust, both the Trust and the AIIPL were engaged in similar activities pertaining to human rights and that while IAIT was collecting domestic funds for such work on a small scale, AIIPL was collecting funds from the UK to do the same work on a larger scale.
But after the CBI conducted raids at Amnesty India premises in Bengaluru and Delhi last week, the human rights group had issued a statement that said: "Over the past year, a pattern of harassment has emerged every time Amnesty International India stands up and speaks out against human rights violations in India."
The group had gone on to deny that they had broken any law - Indian or international in conducting their work. They said, in their statement, that their work all over the world has always been to protect universal human rights and continues to be.
