NEW DELHI: The anti-graft central probe agency CBI on Friday registered a case against IAS-turned-human rights activist Harsh Mander and his NGO Centre for Equity Studies (CES) for alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, officials said.
The officials said that following the registration of the FIR, CBI sleuths have also conducted raids at the residential and official premises of the Mander in the national capital. Mander is the Chairperson-cum-Secretary of the CES.
In an official statement, a spokesperson of the CBI said, “It has been alleged that the NGO had transferred Rs. 32,71,915 (Approx) other than salary/wages/remuneration, from its FCRA account into the account of individual(s) during 2020-21 in violation of the provisions of FCRA, 2010.”
It has also been alleged that the NGO had also diverted funds from its FCRA account through the firm(s) in violation of the provisions of FCRA, 2010, the spokesperson added.
The officials in the agency said, CBI investigators as part of its preliminary enquiry (PE) had questioned several people related to the case and when found a prima facie case, registered the FIR.
In March this year, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had recommended a CBI inquiry against Mander’s Aman Biradari NGO for alleged Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) violations.
The MHA’s move came almost two years after the Economic Offence Wing of Delhi Police in 2021 registered a case under sections 406,409,420,120B of the Indian Penal Code against Mander’s other NGO Centre for Equity Studies (CES) and its officials.
The MHA, in its note to the CBI, had stated that Section 3 of the FCRA prohibits acceptance of foreign contributions by correspondents, columnists, cartoonists, editors, owners, printers, and publishers of a registered newspaper but Mander has been writing columns and articles in newspapers and web portals.
Mander, a former member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council during the erstwhile UPA government, is the founder of NGO Aman Biradari, which according to the MHA is a non-FCRA organisation. The CES has acted as a conduit for the transfer of foreign contributions to non-FCRA associations, the MHA alleged.
“A report by the Centre for Equity Studies in collaboration with Delhi Research Group and ‘Karwan-E-Mohabbat’ was published by CES in June 2020. Karwan-e Mohabbat is a campaign run under the non-FCRA association Aman Biradari Trust (ABT), which is closely associated with the Centre of Equity Studies and Harsh Mander,” the MHA further alleged.