Following its probe the Enforcement Directorate has issued a show-cause notice to global human rights organisation, Amnesty International’s India chapter over an alleged violation of foreign exchange rules, officials said on Thursday.
The notice under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) was issued in August by the Adjudicating Authority of the financial probe agency, for a violation amounting to Rs 51.72 crore received from parent body, Amnesty International UK, the officials said. Sources said, the order issued by the special director of ED on July 25 this year was for alleged violation of FEMA under “borrowing and lending regulations” of Rs 51.72 crore for “rendering civil societies activities in India by getting remittances from parent body Amnesty International, UK in the garb of export of services.”
The International Human Rights organisation has been under government agency’s scrutiny for quite some time now. Amnesty India’s offices in Bengaluru were raided by the ED last year in October over an alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act.
Its Managing Trustee Aakar Patel’s residences were among one of the premises searched by the agency then. The agency was probing if the Amnesty adopted the FDI route to evade the foreign contribution regulation act as the government had tightened laws under FCRA and had cancelled registrations of hundreds of NGOs for their “anti-India” activities.
Amnesty International is known to report issues of human rights violation in various parts of the world. The organisation has also alleged that the Indian security forces are guilty of committing acts of violence against innocents in Jammu and Kashmir. “Impunity for human rights abuses is a long-standing problem in Jammu and Kashmir. Abuses by security force personnel and armed groups, including unlawful killings, rape and disappearances, have often gone un-investigated and unpunished.”