The CBI, which had registered a case on July 8, alleged that SCPPL was not registered under FCRA for collecting money from abroad and the amount of nearly Rs 1.8 crore (2.9 USD) was, therefore, received in violation of the Act as the organisation needed to seek prior approval from Union Home Ministry, official sources said.
Armed with court warrants, the CBI sleuths searched four places including premises owned by Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand, an associate Gulam Mohammed Peshimam and the office of SCPPL.
The CBI, which is probing the firm’s accounts from 2004 to 2014, claimed to have recovered
documents showing that the money had been received from a US-based NGO, Ford Foundation, and that it was not cleared by the Home Ministry, they said.
Terming on Tuesday’s CBI action as a “political vendetta”, Setalvad, who was at fore front of campaign for 2002 Gujarat riots victims, said she was “surprised and shocked” over the CBI searches.
“We don’t understand the rationale behind this entire operation,” she said and hit out at CBI saying “we believe that it is a caged-parrot in operation and its a political vendetta and they are trying to humiliate and intimidate us”.
Rebutting her charges, CBI spokesperson Kanchan Prasad said the searches were being conducted after following the due process of law and also countered the cooperation claim of Setalvad, contending “as far as cooperation with CBI is concerned, they have not been able to explain the violation of the FCRA”.
After on Tuesday’s searches, the CBI expects all the accused to join the investigations, the CBI spokesperson said.
CBI had registered a case after completing verification of all the documents submitted by the home ministry, which had referred them to the probe agency. It was alleged that SCPPL violated FCRA by accepting a donation of USD 2.9 lakh from US-based Ford Foundation without getting clearance from the Home Ministry.