Centre defends cancellation of FCRA registration of Greenpeace

The Ministry of Home Affairs charged Greenpeace with violating Foreign Contribution Regulation Act by merging its foreign donations with domestic contributions

The government on Tuesday defended its decision to cancel the foreign contribution registration of Greenpeace India before the Delhi High Court, saying the Non-governmental organisation (NGO) had violated the norms by opening five accounts to utilise foreign donations without informing the relevant authorities.

The ministry of home affairs (MHA), in an affidavit before Justice Rajiv Shakdher, charged Greenpeace with violating Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by merging its foreign donations with domestic contributions.

The ministry also told the court that on the question of releasing funds for the NGO's day-to-day expenses, “statutory remedy is available under Rule 14 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules (FCRR)” which provides that 25 per cent of the unutilised amount in the FCRA account can be used with government approval. Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, appearing for MHA, said Greenpeace has already applied for seeking benefits under Rule 14 which has not been disclosed to the court. He also claimed that the NGO was not using the donations for the purpose they were received.

The government affidavit said, “it was found that petitioner (Greenpeace) receives huge amount of foreign contribution running into crores of rupees which is though deposited in FCRA account, is diverted to such other utilisation accounts in which foreign contribution has been merged with domestic receipts contrary to the Act”. Greenpeace, during the hearing, told the court that due to freeze on its domestic accounts, it has lost donations to the extent of Rs 1.25 crore only this month which were made by its Indian contributors.

It said if the court does not intervene, then it would lose the same amount of domestic donations in June as well.

The NGO said Rule 14 of FCRR only pertained to the FCRA account and not to the domestic accounts and disputed the government's contention with respect to non-disclosure of domestic accounts.

Earlier on May 18, the court had sought the Centre's response on Greenpeace India's plea challenging suspension of its FCRA registration and freeze on its bank accounts, both domestic and those meant for foreign contributions.

It had asked the government counsel to take instructions on whether funds of Greenpeace's domestic accounts could be released for day-to-day running, including paying salaries of its volunteers.

Apart from the Centre, the court had also issued notice to and sought the replies of three banks --IDBI, ICICI and Yes Bank -- which had complied with the Home Ministry's directive to freeze the NGO's accounts.

It had also asked Greenpeace to file an affidavit indicating details of its day-to-day functioning expenses, including salaries to be paid to the volunteers or workers, and listed the matter for hearing for today.

MHA on April 9 had suspended the NGO's registration under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for 180 days, Greenpeace said in its plea.

The Greenpeace petition had said the MHA had earlier issued show cause notice to it asking why its registration should not be cancelled for allegedly transferring monies from its “FCRA designated bank to the FCRA utilisation account and from there to five other undeclared utilisation bank accounts without informing the authority”.

The Ministry had also directed the banks to freeze the designated FCRA account as well as the domestic accounts.

Prior to that on February 19, the government had written to the banks with whom Greenpeace had accounts not to credit any amount, the NGO told the court.