New Delhi: The central government on Tuesday accused environmental NGO Greenpeace India of violating the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) by merging its foreign contributions with domestic donations.
The Ministry of Home Affairs also told Justice Rajiv Shakdher that Greenpeace India is utilising its foreign contribution for own administrative purpose.
"There are several other accounts which have not been revealed and we are investigating that," Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain told the court.
Submitting an affidavit, the government said: "It was found that Greenpeace receives huge amount of foreign contribution running into crores of rupees which is though deposited in FCRA account, is diverted to such other utilisation accounts in which foreign contribution has been merged with domestic receipts contrary to the Act."
The court was hearing a plea of Greenpeace India to de-freeze its international and national bank accounts which were blocked following a Home Ministry directive last month.
The plea argued that the suspension of licence and freezing of accounts were completely "illegal and unconstitutional".
The NGO told the court that the Home Ministry's actions showed evidence of "bad faith" and was an attempt to silence Greenpeace India because of its high profile campaigns in areas like coal mining, air pollution and the use of pesticides in agriculture.
"The petitioner is unable to meet its salaries, rent, statutory liabilities, such as TDS, provident fund, gratuity payments, and professional taxes, and third party payments," the petition said.
"Our national bank accounts contain donations from thousands of Indian citizens, who give as little as Rs.350 a month. Because they are blocked, we have had to scale back our campaigns on things like air pollution and solar street lighting.
"Our staff and their families are facing an uncertain future," Greenpeace India said.
The court would hear the matter on Wednesday.
