CBI arrests 14 including six public servants in FCRA bribery case

The Central Bureau of Investigation CBI on Wednesday arrested 14 accused including six public servants and recovered Rs 321 crore approx in cash for alleged illegal clearance of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act FCRA licences in lieu of bribesA senior CBI official said that during the search several incriminating documents mobile phones etc were recovered at the premises of accused persons The searches were conducted at around 40 locations including in Delhi Haryana Rajasthan Jharkhand Himachal Pradesh Telangana Andhra Pradesh Tamil Nadu Assam and ManipurA case was registered on Tuesday against 36 accused including seven public servants of FCRA Division of Ministry of Home Affairs MHA and National Informatics Centre NIC and middlemen representatives of various NGOs on the allegations that some officials of FCRA Division in conspiracy with the promoters representatives of different NGOs middlemen were indulging in corrupt activities for getting backdoor FCRA registration renewal to NGOs illegally with an object to continue receiving donations despite not fulfilling the prescribed norms he saidIt was further alleged that some public servants were impersonating themselves as officers posted in FCRA Division and were indulging in said practices and obtaining bribe from NGOs for facilitating them for their registration renewal of registration under FCRA and for other FCRA related worksDuring the investigation two accused were caught while delivering and accepting the bribe amount of Rs 4 lakh on behalf of a Senior Accountant of MHA New Delhi he addedIt was alleged that the delivery of bribe was done through a hawala operator and a close associate of said public servant at Avadi Tamil NaduThe arrested accused are being produced before the Competent Court The case is under investigationThe arrested accused were identified as Parmod Kumar Bhasin Senior Accountant in MHA who was earlier posted in FCRA Division Alok Ranjan Senior AO PAO in MHA earlier worked in FCRA Division MHA Raj Kumar Accountant in FCRA Md Saheed Khan Assistant Director in FCRA Md Ghazanfar Ali officer of MHA earlier posted in FCRA Division Tushar Kanti Roy official of FCRA in MHAAnd the arrested private persons were identified as Pawan Kumar Sharma Ramanand Pareek hawala operator located at Chennai Robin Devadass of Chennai NGOThe Social Project in Tamil Nadu Ravi Shankar Ambastha a resident of Rohini Manoj Kumar B A of Hyderabad Telangana Santosh Kumar Prasad Director of consultancy firm Ms Shaurya Business Solutions Private Limited having its office at Dayanand Colony in Delhi and another office at CWG Village in Akshardham and Amita Chandra Director of consultancy firm Ms Shaurya Business Solutions Private Limited having its office at Dayanand Colony Lajpat Nagar and another office at CWG Village in Akshardham Vageesh and Chartered Accountant working in a hospital on behalf of Ganga Orthopaedic Research amp Education Foundation GOREFMHA has prepared a detailed note on three FCRAclearance networks which are reportedly operating and have linkages with government officials and are charging speed money or problem resolution moneyIt has been decided with the approval of the competent authority that CBI should immediately investigate this matter for taking necessary actionWhen the alleged violation was brought to the notice of Home Minister Amit Shah the Union Minister immediately asked officials of the MHA to deal with this matter very strictly Thereafter a complaint was made to CBI by MHAThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever