On Saturday, the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF), a non-governmental organisation linked with the Gandhi family, had its Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence revoked by the Centre for alleged violation of the foreign funding law. Licence of Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) has also been cancelled. Both the organisations cannot receive foreign funding anymore.
BREAKING: Home ministry cancels registration of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act @HMOIndia
— Bharti Jain (@bhartijainTOI) October 23, 2022
According to reports, the decision was made based on investigations conducted by an inter-ministerial committee constituted by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) in July 2020. A notice regarding the termination of licence has been sent to the office-bearers of the foundation.
In July 2020, the MHA formed an inter-ministerial committee led by an Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer to investigate three foundations linked to the Gandhi family, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF), Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT), and Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust, for alleged violations of the Money Laundering Act, Income Tax Act, and FCRA.
The committee, which included officers from the Union home and finance ministries in addition to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), was tasked with investigating whether the trusts run by the Gandhi family and other Congress leaders tampered with documents when filing income taxes or misused and laundered money received from foreign countries.
Both the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and RGF have not commented on the matter yet.
In 2020, several shocking details about the financial dealings of the RGF were reported. Back then, OpIndia had extensively reported on how the Chinese government donated funds to RGF in 2006 and subsequent years. It is worth noting that Sonia Gandhi is the Chairperson of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and the trustees have been Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra since 2005.
During UPA1 in 2008, the Congress party and the Communist Party of China (CPC) had signed a deal in Beijing for exchanging high-level information and co-operation between them. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) also provided the two parties with the “opportunity to consult each other on important bilateral, regional and international developments”.
Interestingly, the MoU was signed by the then Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and on the Chinese side, it was signed by none other than Xi Jinping himself, who was then the Chinese vice-president and standing committee member of the CPC’s politburo. The MoU was signed in the presence of his mother and party president Sonia Gandhi.
Before the signing of the MoU, the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi had held a long meeting with Xi and other senior leaders of the Communist Party of China to discuss issues of mutual interest.
In 2008, Sonia Gandhi had visited Beijing along with Rahul, daughter Priyanka, son-in-law Robert Vadra and their two children to attend the opening of the Olympic Games. A year before, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had also led a delegation of the Congress party to China.
The 2008 MoU between CCP and Congress came at a time when the Left parties in India had expressed lack of trust in UPA-1 government led by Congress. The India Today report suggests that even as China was aware of the political landscape in India, Xi Jinping went ahead and signed the pact with Congress as CCP wanted deeper ties with Congress, especially the Gandhi.
In addition to the donations from China, the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation diverted tax-payers money from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund. The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation received a grant from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund in 2005-2006, according to the Annual Report. The same information is disclosed in the 2006-2007 report. In 2007-2008, the Foundation again received a ‘gift’ from the PMNRF.
In particular, the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) was founded in 1948. Initially, the fund’s objective was to aid displaced Pakistanis during and immediately following India’s partition. The PMNRF’s resources are now mostly used to provide emergency aid to families of those died in natural disasters such as floods, cyclones, and earthquakes, as well as victims of severe accidents and riots.
Further, it was alleged that the RGF received donations from individuals accused under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. In August 2020, BJP’s Sambit Patra had said that money laundered by entities and individuals with questionable integrity such as Mehul Choksi, Rana Kapoor, Jignesh Shah, Zakir Naik and GVK group found its way to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust.
It was alleged that hate preacher Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), an accused under the PMLA, had donated Rs. 50 lakh on 08.07.2011 to the Trust from its DCB Bank account. It was later found that Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust had donated an amount of Rs 50 lakhs to IRF on 12.07.2016 from a different bank account.
Economic offender Mehul Choksi donated to both the foundations, the BJP had alleged. Jignesh Shah, an accused in the NSEL scam, too, had donated to RGCT. Patra had alleged that a sum of Rs. 50 lakhs, out of the proceeds of crime earned by FTIL and Shah, were donated to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust on 27.10.2011.
Rajiv Gandhi Foundation was set up in 1991 and Sonia Gandhi is the chairperson. Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Former Union Minister P Chidambaram, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Suman Dubey and Ashok Ganguly are other trustees of the foundation. Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust is chaired by Sonia Gandhi and has Rahul Gandhi, Ashok Ganguly, Bansi Mehta and Deep Joshi as its trustees.
