The Enforcement directorate (ED) has given a clean chit and dropped charges of forex violations against Tibetan religious leader Ogyen Trinley Dorjee, four years after the Karmapa and his associates were charged with keeping illegal foreign and domestic currency worth about Rs6 crore.
ED has, however, ordered confiscation of the foreign currency haul which totals at over Rs5.97 crore and includes a horde of foreign currency.The agency had taken over the case a few months after Himachal Pradesh Police intercepted a vehicle in January, 2011, and seized suspected cash from the Karmapa’s associates and later from his monastery.
ED, which has been probing the currency haul under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), based its findings on the investigation that the Karmapa and two of the trusts that were under scanner for suspected Hawala transactions have “no role in the collection or management of donations” from global devotees, including the seized currency.
The State Police had dropped the name of the spiritual leader from its chargesheet in this case in 2012.The Karmapas’s Director (Finance), who kept records for the said cash, Thupten Sherab, has been held guilty under Section 4 of FEMA (holding of foreign exchange) and all the cash has been seized.