CBI registers case against MHA babu for missing files, graft

NEW DELHI: A home ministry undersecretary who was shunted out of its division dealing with foreign-funded NGOs over alleged corruption and later found in illegal possession of the file pertaining to activist Teesta Setalvad’s NGO Sabrang Trust has been booked by the CBI under the Prevention of Corruption Act and relevant sections of the IPC.The accused is said to have walked away with the file on Sabrang Trust, whose registration under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) was suspended in September 2015 and became due for cancellation in March this year, in December-January. That the file was missing was discovered by MHA bosses only months later as they prepared to cancel the NGO’s registration under FCRA.“The MHA could not trace the Sabrang Trust file around March, and the undersecretary was an obvious suspect. That was when officials of the FCRA division chased him and threatened him into handing back the file,” said a ministry officer. “We extracted the file out of him in April just as a dentist pulls out a decaying tooth,” said another officer.The MHA suspected that the file was possibly not the only set of papers “unauthorisedly taken away” by the undersecretary. So the CBI was called and put on his trail. Preliminary inquiries revealed disproportionate assets. Raids carried out a couple of days ago at four locations across his home and offices led to the recovery of “Rs 7.5 lakh in cash and incriminating documents, including files pertaining to MHA and I&B ministries,” CBI said on Monday.“It was alleged that the public servant, while working as undersecretary in the MHA, was indulging in corrupt activities and arbitrarily issuing notices to a large number of NGOs/societies registered under FCRA who had been receiving significant amounts of foreign contribution. The said officer had allegedly demanded and obtained illegal gratification from some of these organisations, which were laundered through various immovable assets as well as certain private firms,” a CBI statement said.A senior MHA officer said the unauthorised possession of important files by the undersecretary was “a serious offence” and hinted at strict departmental action against him, which could go “well beyond suspension”.Intelligence agencies suspect the accused may have shared copies of the Sabrang Trust file with “outsiders” during the three months it was with him. “Though this was possibly done for monetary gratification, the motive of those who got access to the file is not yet clear. It is subject to investigation,” an officer said.Incidentally, Ford Foundation, the US-based international donor which was taken off the ‘prior permission’ list recently, was one of the donors to Sabrang Trust, which is said to have diverted foreign funding from Ford to uses other than those permitted under FCRA as well as to non-FCRA registered entities.An intelligence officer said Sabrang’s FCRA licence is likely to be cancelled soon.