Chennai: An official of the Ministry of Home Affairs, a top orthopaedic surgeon from Tamil Nadu, a Chennai-based hawala operator and a few others including NGOs from the southern states have been booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation in a case of alleged bribery to renew the FCRA registration. On Wednesday, the CBI arrested as many as 14 of the 36 accused named in the scam, which had also spread to other parts of the country including Haryana, Delhi, Telangana, Jharkhand, Manipur, Himachal Pradesh and Assam.
The has named 36 known accused including the promoter of the NGO Omiddyar and “unknown others”.
According to the CBI, the charges in the case include criminal conspiracy, demand of undue advantage by public servant, taking undue advantage to influence public servant by corrupt or illegal means or by exercise of personal influence, undue advantage to another person with intention, impersonation, cheating, forgery for the purpose of cheating and using forged document as genuine.
As per the FIR, the agency received information that some officers of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) Division, Ministry of Home Affairs in conspiracy with the promoters/ representatives of different NGOs, middlemen, public servants impersonating as officers posted in FCRA Division “are indulging into corrupt practices and in pursuance of the said conspiracy are obtaining bribe from NGOs for facilitating them for registration and renewal of registration under FCRA and for other FCRA related works.”
The agency learnt that “these NGOs get backdoor FCRA registration/ renewal by such illegal means with an object to continue receiving donations despite not fulfilling the prescribed norms. They also generate fake invoices to justify their expenditure for the defined cause.”
The CBI said it received information that Parmod Kumar Bhasin, working with Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi, who was posted in FCRA Division earlier, had allegedly obtained bribe from NGOs for facilitating them for registration and renewal of registration. He was also impersonating himself as FCRA officials of New Delhi and habitually collected undue advantage from different NGOs through hawala network.
In April this year, Bhasin approached S Rajasekaran of Ganga Medical Center and Hospital, a leading orthopaedic hospital in Coimbatore, and informed him that the FCRA registration renewal request of his NGO Ganga Orthopaedic Research & Education Foundation (GOREF) is pending with him and the same can’t be processed since there is deficiency in Annual Return documents submitted by their Chartered Accountant. He further informed that to process their Annual Return the hospital will have to pay a penalty of 5% of the total amount received each year.
Subsequently, Rajasekaran’s auditor Vageesh contacted Bhasin, who demanded bribe of Rs. 2 lacs for favourable processing of their Annual Returns without penalty. Later, another auditor Suguna Ravichandran approached Bhasin for negotiation and agreed to pay the bribe.
Bhasin asked the money to be given to a hawala operator in Coimbatore, who was an associate of a Chennai-based hawala operator Ramanand Pareek.
Bhasin was also in touch with a leading hawala operator Pawan Kumar Sharma alias Pareekh Bhai, who has a nationwide network.
Similarly, Bhasin had contacted through his agents a few other NGOs in Tamil Nadu including in Vellore, Cuddalore and The Nilgiris and allegedly accepted bribe to renew their FCRA registration, the CBI said.
He also collected money from others NGOs in different parts of the country.
