The Enforcement Directorate has issued a show-cause notice to alleged human rights organisation Amnesty International, for violation of the foreign exchange law (FEMA) to the tune of over Rs 51 crore.
According to the reports, the ED had served notice last month under the relevant sections of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). The officials said investigators found that there were violations in borrowing and lending regulations of FEMA to the tune of Rs 51.72 crore for rendering civil society activities in the country by getting remittances from its parent body, Amnesty International UK, in the garb of export of services.
The notice was issued last month by the Adjudicating Authority of the FEMA which is a special director rank officer of the Enforcement Directorate, the officials said.
In October last year, the ED had conducted searches at its Bengaluru office in connection with its probe in the alleged violation of FDI guidelines and remittances it had received from the parent body. Its director Akar Patel’s residences were among 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.
Financial irregularity is not the only issue with Amnesty, the NGO was also caught peddling fake news. Earlier, Amnesty India tweeted, “Over 900 people have been killed in police encounters in UP between March 2017 and January 2018. NHRC says UP police are ‘misusing their power in the light of an undeclared endorsement of the higher-ups’.”
However, Amnesty had highly exaggerated the number to 900 people, to which UP police had issued strong rebuttal and threatened legal action against the NGO. Following this, Amnesty India was forced to issue an apology.
Amnesty International has been involved in a host of other issues. There is evidence of them being close to radical Islamists, even the Taliban and also the British government.
