The CBI has registered a case against an Under Secretary attached to the Home Ministry, who walked away with the files pertaining to the alleged Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) violations by social activist Teesta Setalvad’s two NGOs.
The Hindu had reported on Saturday that the official’s premises were raided after a senior Home Ministry official lodged a complaint with the CBI.
Under Secretary Anand Joshi and some unnamed persons have been accused of indulging in corrupt practices and arbitrarily issuing notices to many NGOs, registered under the FCRA, that were receiving foreign contributions.
They are believed to have taken bribes from some of these organisations, a CBI official said.
Not under suspensionMr. Joshi is still posted in the MHA and has not been placed under suspension.
“It is a serious offence and we are looking at something more than a suspension,” said a top government official. Though the missing files were subsequently traced and restored to the FCRA division, the CBI was asked to investigate. It was then noticed that the files had gone missing when the Home Ministry was contemplating cancelling the FCRA registration of one of Ms. Setalvad’s NGOs, Sabrang Trust, an official said. Sabrang Trust’s licence had been suspended by the MHA on September 9, 2015 and it was asked to give an explanation, failing which the FCRA registration would have been cancelled in 180 days. Ms. Setalvad filed her reply in October. The deadline given by the MHA expired in March this year.
The MHA conducted an inquiry and identified the official who had taken the files away. “We extracted the files from him,” said the official.
An Under Secretary is not allowed to take files home. Only those in the rank of a Joint Secretary and above are allowed to do that.
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