Hc Issues Notice To Kesri & Cong In Foreign Contribution Case

The Delhi High Court yesterday asked Congress president Sitaram Kesri to file by today evening his reply to the allegation that as treasurer of the party during 1993-95 he had received Rs 3.75 crore foreign donations in violations of Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA).

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Mahinder Narain and Justice S K Mahajan yesterday issued notice to Congress separately on it being impleaded as a party in the case and fixed July 15 for further hearing of the matter.

The bench was informed by additional solicitor general Abhisek Manu Singhvi that the Congress party filed its reply with the FCRA wing on the alleged violations on May 24, the deadline set earlier.

Singhvi said the FCRA cell would take some time to study the reply filed by the party and take suitable action as per law.

The reply filed by the Congress said that the three companies, Decor Trading, Diera Trading and Dominion Trading, whose majority of shareholding belong to non-resident Indians, could not be termed as foreign companies under Section 591 of the Companies Act, hence the donations received from them by the party could not be termed as foreign donations.

However, it failed to identify the others who gave over Rs two crore donation to the party in April and September 1994 through bank drafts drawn on Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Corporation Ltd at Jakarta in Indonesia.

The petition, filed by Madhuresh through advocate Prashant Bhusan, had alleged that though the irregularity was detected in September 1996, the authorities were not taking action for last eight months.

Section four of the FCRA puts an absolute ban on political parties from receiving any foreign contribution.

The Central Board of Direct Tax (CBDT) yesterday brought all relevant documents and investigations done into the alleged FCRA violations by the party, which was first detected by the income tax authorities.

However, the bench returned the two sealed envelops to the CBDT, directing them to bring the same on the next date of hearing.

Treasurer of the party, Ahmed Patel, had in his letter to the home ministry on March 31, 1997, admitted the Congress receiving such donations through official and banking channels and said that the authorities at the FCRA cell were not informed of this before due to administrative oversight.

However home minister Indrajit Gupta cleared the file for action against the Congress party on March 27 and the party was issued a show cause notice on April 29 asking them to furnish reports by May 14.

The deadline for submitting of additional information was extended to May 24 at the request of the Congress party.

The petitioner had questioned that was it open for a political party to stall the prosecution proceedings on the ground that it was ascertaining details of foreign donors when FCRA completely prohibited acceptance of foreign donation.