Delhi court takes cognisance of chargesheet against Deepak Talwar in FCRA violations case

New Delhi [India], Feb 21 (ANI): A Delhi court has taken cognisance of the Enforcement Directorate's chargesheet in a case of alleged violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by an NGO linked to corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar.

Special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar, while taking cognisance of the same on Wednesday, issued summons against all the accused for March 16 and observed that allegations in the chargesheet prima facie show that the arrayed accused were involved in the process of acquisition of proceeds of crime.

From the allegations made in the chargesheet, the offences under Section 3 read with Section 70, punishable under Section 4 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002, are made out, the court observed.

Corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar is currently in judicial custody in the matter.

The ED case is based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in November 2017 on a complaint of FCRA violations involving more than Rs 90 crore against Deepak Talwar.

The allegations are that Advantage India, an NGO, of which Deepak Talwar is a founding member, received foreign contributions of Rs 90.75 crore from MBDA England (Leading European Missile Manufacturer) and Airbus France under CSR funding.

According to the ED, it has been revealed that Advantage India did not spend all the funds of FCRA for the mandated purposes and that the funds were siphoned off for non-mandated purposes by booking bogus expenditure under various heads to show that foreign donations were utilized for mandated purposes.

ED's Special Public Prosecutor advocate Nitesh Rana, while arguing for cognizance, stated that the funds received by Advantage India were not utilized for the mandated purposes for which it was received.

As per the Memorandum of Association of Advantage India, the funds are to be applied towards the promotions of aims and objectives of the society. However, the foreign contribution received was allegedly used for purposes contrary to the mandate in the Memorandum of Association.

Advocate Nitesh Rana along with advocate AR Aditya alleged that a criminal conspiracy was hatched to divert the funds received from foreign donors for non mandated purposes by booking bogus expenditure in the Books of Account of the society on the basis of forged documents.

They submitted that the payment made through banking channel through various genuine and paper entities on the basis of documents forged ostensibly for mandated purposes of society were received back in cash by the founder Deepak Talwar, after routing the same through a chain of entities.

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

The economic offenses watchdog has alleged that Talwar, who was booked by the two probe agencies in various criminal cases of corruption, was involved in cases related to corporate lobbying.