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'Greenpeace merging foreign contributions with domestic donations'
New Delhi, May 26
The central government on
Tuesday accused environmental NGO Greenpeace India of violating the
Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by merging its foreign
contributions with domestic donations.
The ministry of home
affairs also told Justice Rajiv Shakdher that Greenpeace India is
utilising its foreign contribution for own administrative purpose.
"There
are several other accounts which have not been revealed and we are
investigating that," Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain told the
court.
Submitting an affidavit, the government said: "It was
found that 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."
The court was hearing a plea of Greenpeace India to
de-freeze its international and national bank accounts which were
blocked following a home ministry directive last month.
The plea argued that the suspension of licence and freezing of accounts were completely "illegal and unconstitutional".
The
NGO told the court that the home ministry's actions showed evidence of
"bad faith" and was an attempt to silence Greenpeace India because of
its high profile campaigns in areas like coal mining, air pollution and
the use of pesticides in agriculture.
"The petitioner is unable
to meet its salaries, rent, statutory liabilities, such as TDS,
provident fund, gratuity payments, and professional taxes, and third
party payments," the petition said.
"Our national bank accounts
contain donations from thousands of Indian citizens, who give as little
as Rs.350 a month. Because they are blocked, we have had to scale back
our campaigns on things like air pollution and solar street lighting.
"Our staff and their families are facing an uncertain future," Greenpeace India said.
The court would hear the matter on Wednesday.