Tamil Nadu slaps showcause notice on Greenpeace India

The Tamil Nadu government has served a showcause notice on Greenpeace India threatening to cancel its registration due to questions over operations and funding.

The letter dated June 16 was in response to the society's office being inspected on June 3 by a team from the office of the Tamil Nadu Registrar of Societies. That inspection was to look into the organisation's society status - the legal basis on which Greenpeace India's main operations take place. Greenpeace had objected back then to the manner in which the inspection was carried out.

Greenpeace India Programme director Divya Raghunandan said: "Greenpeace respects the law and we have cooperated with the authorities. We are confident that we will be able to address the issues raised by the registrar and prove beyond doubt we have acted within the law."

The organisation has been at loggerheads with the Center since June last year after a letter from the Intelligence Bureau to the Prime Minister's Office called the NGO's activities "a threat to national economic security". The home ministry had initiated legal proceedings against it on charges of not adhering to the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act. On May 27, it had got interim relief from the Delhi High Court and it's bank accounts activated, which the ministry had earlier frozen.