MHA official who 'took away' Teesta file arrested

NEW DELHI: A home ministry under secretary accused of taking away the FCRA file on Teesta Setalvad’s Sabrang Trust and arbitrarily issuing notices to many foreign-funded NGOs was arrested on Sunday after the CBI tracked him in Tilak Nagar area of west Delhi.Anand Joshi, earlier with the ministry’s FCRA division, went missing from his home on Wednesday just as CBI prepared to question him as part of its investigation into the corruption charges against him. He had, in a note left behind for his wife, claimed he was facing mental harassment over the past few months.Joshi was picked up from Tilak Nagar at 5pm “based on information that he was in west Delhi”. He was taken to the CBI headquarters for questioning, and arrested later in the evening.Joshi had been was under surveillance, and, as per CBI sources, was deliberately avoiding joining the probe.The CBI FIR charged Joshi and some other unnamed persons with allegedly indulging in corrupt practices and arbitrarily issuing notices to several NGOs, registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Among the NGOs harassed by him were environmentalist Sunita Narain ’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Narain had even written to the home ministry brass complaining about the standard questionnaire arbitrarily sent to her NGO by Joshi.Joshi has rejected the corruption charges slapped on him and accused his seniors of pressuring him to give a clean chit to NGOs.The under-secretary was under surveillance after a key FCRA file pertaining to Sabrang Trust was found missing and later traced to him. He had taken the file home without authorisation and kept it with him for a good three months. The ministry forced him to restore the file sometime in April but put the CBI on his trail.The CBI last week raided his house and office and recovered several files relating to the home ministry as well as DAVP, where he had worked earlier. The seized documents included files pertaining to NGO Care India, citizenship requests from Afghan nationals, an original PIO card of a Canadian citizen and four DAVP files.An under-secretary is not allowed to take away files. Only officials of the rank of joint secretary and above are allowed to take files home, though a record of the same must be kept. A senior home ministry official had earlier termed Joshi’s act as “a very serious violation”.