The Union Home Ministry (MHA) on Friday defended its decision to cancel the foreign contribution registration of Greenpeace India before the Delhi High Court, saying the NGO had violated the norms by opening five accounts to utilise foreign donations without informing the relevant authorities.
The MHA, in an affidavit before Justice VP Vaish, charged Greenpeace with violating Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by merging its foreign donations with domestic contributions. Meanwhile, Greenpeace came out with an intense online campaign against the Centre’s decision, terming it as an “attempt to muzzle dissent in democracy”.
The MHA’s cancellation order dated September 2 listed out series of violations by Greenpeace in manipulating foreign donations. In 2008-09, the NGO in its balance sheet had shown NIl as opening balance of foreign contribution. This claim was supported by an auditor’s certificate. But the investigations revealed that Rs6.60 crore was their opening balance in foreign contributions.
“The Greenpeace India Society has admitted the same and claimed this to be a typographical order,” said the five-page cancellation order of MHA, citing nine specific financial violations by the NGO. Holding that Greenpeace had not come before the court with clean hands, the Ministry said the NGO was “continuing to use FCRA accounts despite suspension of the same on April 9, 2015”.
“It is submitted that sufficient material is there to prove that Greenpeace violated various Sections of FCRA 2010, which are also mentioned in the suspension order dated April 9. The suspension order mention about acts and omissions on the part of Greenpeace regarding violations of provisions of FCRA 2010 and Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules (FCRR) 2011 and a reasonable opportunity was also given to them,” the MHA said in its affidavit.
The court had on May 27 allowed Greenpeace to use two of its accounts for the purpose of receiving and utilising fresh domestic donations for its day-to-day functioning. The Ministry had on April 9 this
year suspended the NGO’s registration under FCRA for 180 days. Greenpeace has said in its petition that the Ministry 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 relevant authority”.
Affirming its decision, the Ministry said, “After taking into account the seriousness of the violation committed by the association, the Central Government, in exercise of the power conferred by Section 14 of FCRA 2010...cancelled the permanent registration of association namely, Greenpeace India society. The court has now fixed the matter for further hearing on September 17.”
Meanwhile, the NGO started an online campaign against the Centre’s decision. They said that cancellation of FCRA registration is part of the Government’s “relentless onslaught” against the right to speak up and demanded a healthy environment and transparency in public processes and asserted that those in power cannot “muzzle” dissent in a democracy.
“The NGO launched a new online campaign recreating Bollywood movie posters to highlight real life stories about reclaiming freedom of speech,” it said in a statement and reiterated its commitment to continue campaigns with the support of Indian donors.
The cancelling of our FCRA registration is part of the Government’s relentless onslaught against the right of all Indians to speak up and demand a healthy environment, good governance, and transparency in public processes,” said Vinuta Gopal, interim co-Executive Director of Greenpeace India.