NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday conducted raids at premises linked to former AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak in connection with alleged violation of provisions of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) in receiving overseas funds after the agency registered an FIR in the matter based on the complaint by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), officials said.
In the FIR, accessed by the newspaper, the CBI also named AAP member Kapil Bhardwaj and alleged they received foreign funding in violation of the FCRA and the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
The MHA complaint alleged that AAP has received “foreign donations in contravention to the provisions of the FCRA” and there were several discrepancies in the money flow.
In its complaint, the MHA also mentioned several transactions amounting to nearly Rs 5 crore, while also alleging a Canada link, where one Canadian citizen named Karnail Singh Sidhu directly donated Rs 20,000 to the party through AAP’s online portal in 2016.
At the centre of the probe is a 2016 fundraiser event organised by AAP in Canada. Contents of internal party emails from that year, containing conversations between Durgesh Pathak and AAP office bearer Kapil Bharadwaj, are also part of the FIR and under probe, officials confirmed.
In the exchange, Pathak apparently sounds assured that he would not face any legal action because of the matter.
Earlier, an Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe into the matter had found multiple red flags in the party’s foreign funding patterns, which included fake identities’ suspicion, as 155 individuals living abroad donated over Rs 1 crore on 404 occasions using just 55 unique passport numbers. As per the agency, this raised suspicion of identity manipulation.
A total of 201 foreign donors contributed over Rs 2.65 crore using only 51 email addresses, while 71 donors used just 21 mobile numbers to funnel nearly Rs 1 crore. Many of these overlap, suggesting possible concealment of identity of true donor, the MHA complaint to the CBI suggested.
Besides these, 75 donors are alleged to have used only 15 credit cards to make donations to the tune of Rs 20 lakh.
The MHA said the ED’s investigation into the party’s foreign funding has also revealed that the AAP set up the ‘AAP Overseas India’ with volunteers in countries like the US, Canada and Australia and aimed to collect Rs 50 crore in foreign donations in 2016 alone.