Court sends corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar to ED custody in FCRA violation case

A special court on Friday sent corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for seven days immediately after the agency arrested him in the Rouse avenue court in a case of alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by an NGO linked to him.

The ED case is based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in November 2017. The allegations were that Talwar's NGO named Advantage India received a foreign contribution of Rs 90.75 crores from a leading European missile manufacturer, MBDA England, and Airbus France under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding.

According to the ED, investigation revealed that Advantage India did not spend all the funds of FCRA for the mandated purposes and they were siphoned off.

Special Public Prosecutors, D P Singh, and Nitesh Rana, while seeking his remand, argued that Talwar remained "non-cooperative and gave evasive answers". They said that he is "deliberately withholding facts and information which are in his exclusive knowledge".

Advocate A R Aditya, the counsel representing the ED, sought his custody by asserting that he needs to be "confronted with voluminous documents and other co-conspirators" to find out the modus operandi of the money trail and also for the elicitation of the information which is extremely crucial.

The counsel for the accused, however, objected to this and said that his client was already in the judicial custody and ED could have interrogated him then and there. "Now there is no need for his custodial interrogation by the ED," he said.

Corporate Lobbyist Deepak Talwar was extradited by Dubai authorities along with Dubai-based businessman Rajeev Saxena earlier this year.