News of 22,000 inmates in the homes run by Missionaries of Charity (MoC) across India being hit with basic food and medicine shortage was accompanied by reports (officially confirmed) of the accounts of the charity (MOC) being frozen. Evening brought a new twist to the tale however through a PIB press release. According to the late evening statement by the Ministry of Home Affairs “State Bank of India informed that Missionaries of Charity itself sent a request to SBI to freeze its accounts”!

The government has claimed that it “did not freeze bank accounts of Missionaries of Charity (MoC)” and added that the renewal application under application under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for renewal of registration was “refused due to adverse inputs”. It added that “no request / revision application has been received from Missionaries of Charity for review of refusal of renewal”. The renewal was refused on Christmas day, December 25 2021, for “not meeting the eligibility conditions under FCRA 2010 and Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules (FCRR) 2011,” stated the government.

The MHA stated that the “Missionaries of Charity (MoC) was registered under FCRA vide Registration No 147120001 and its registration was valid up-to October 31, 2021. The validity was subsequently extended up-to December 31, 2021 along with other FCRA Associations whose renewal application was pending renewal. However, while considering the MoC’s renewal application, some adverse inputs were noticed. In consideration of these inputs on record, the renewal application of MoC was not approved.” However, it has not shared what those “adverse inputs” were or if the MoC had been informed. It sounds strange that the Missionaries of Charity “asked” State Bank of India to “freeze its accounts”!

This has been called out by Member of Parliament,  All India Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien, as a “”a filthy hit job on Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity” adding that the official statement by MHA is “spin doctoring” and a “cover up”.

After a filthy hit job on Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity on December 25,now MHA doing what it does best: SPIN DOCTORING & a COVER UP.

India has an Opposition that will fight the good fight. And I have a leader who will always stand up for the oppressed @MamataOfficial

— Derek O’Brien | ডেরেক ও’ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) December 27, 2021

According to John Dayal, former president, All India Catholic Union, and member of the now defunct National Integration Council,  the Sisters and Brothers of the Missionaries of Charity, the movement started by Bharat Ratna and now Catholic Saint, Mother Teresa, do not run plush schools or private universities but “run homes for new-born infants abandoned and left on the streets and garbage dumps” and those “for afflicted young that no government or charitable orphanage would willingly care. And they nurse the destitute and dying, lending some dignity to their passage.” While the nuns and brothers get no salary, they do have staff members who need to be paid a salary, and need to buy medicines and foodstuff. “This FCRA ban is tantamount to starving them, and torturing the children and old in their care, to bring them to submission,” he said adding that the MoC is “is a global movement, working in areas where few dare go, bringing hope if no life to those in abject risk.” And the ban has come on Christmas week “putting salt on the wounds of the community.” 

Christmas Day itself saw attacks on churches and congregations.   “I am amazed at the hypocrisy of the Indian establishment. The President of India goes to the Sacred Heart Cathedral Cathedral in Delhi to see the Holy Crib, a photo opportunity, without government making any public statement denouncing the many statements by political leader calling or a genocide of Muslims and Christians. The prime minister sends a late night Christmas greeting in a telecast where he is detailing the new covid vaccination protocol,” he added

According to well known peace activist and writer Fr Cedric Prakash SJ, “a very effective strategy of fascists and dictators from time immemorial is to denigrate, demonize, divide and destroy the other!” He said “Christians of India have always been a ‘soft target’ ; in their ascent to power since the late 1990s the BJP and their ilk in the Sangh Parivar- have systematically targeted the community in different ways and all over the country.

The ‘bogey’ of forced conversion, the desecration of sacred objects, the attacks on Christians and their  places of worship and institutions, the myriad threats, intimidation and harassments, the spreading of canard- are all  part of a wider game plan to polarize the majority community and put Christians in bad light!”

The Missionaries of Charity, said Fr Cerdric, “are high – up  at the receiving end of this viciousness and vilification! Mother Teresa and her legacy which is continued selflessly today – embody the highest of Christian Charity- reaching out to the dying destitute, the poorest of the poor, the orphan and widow, the unloved and rejected , the lost, the lonely, the last and least – irrespective of one’s religious belief! False cases are now  foisted on the Sisters like that of ‘conversion’; besides,latest reports say that the Foreign Accounts of the MCs have also been frozen.”

He also recalled that the MoCs care for “thousands of the rejected of India: day-in and day- out without counting the cost” and asked that the Government “reconsider this terrible decision and restore the good name and work of the MCs; if there are any laxities or shortcomings the MCs must be helped to rectify/ address them; and above all, to ensure that those who are cared for in the MC institutions are not deprived of this basic humanitarian assistance!”

By the end of the working day Missionaries of Charity (MoC) also issued a statement that echoed the government statement. They said that as the renewal of the FCRA renewal application was “not renewed” they have asked their centres not to use FC accounts “till the matter is resolved”.

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Image courtesy Scroll.in

Press Release from International Commission of Jurists

Grover and Jaising are both Supreme Court lawyers and co-founders of the Lawyers Collective, a non-governmental organization.

These raids were reportedly conducted pursuant to CBI’s registration of criminal charges into alleged violations of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), a much criticized law frequently used to target human rights defenders and critics of the Indian government.

“This raid seems designed to harass and intimidate two tireless advocates of Constitutional and international rights in India,” said Sam Zarifi, Secretary-General of the ICJ.

“The Indian government must immediately cease harassment of the Lawyers Collective and its founders Anand Grover and Indira Jaising,” he added.

The CBI raids appears to be based on a 2016 Ministry of Home Affairs report, now under appeal in the Bombay High Court, and without any material change in circumstances since its release.

The raid has also been conducted notwithstanding a National Human Rights Commission statement seeking a status report from the CBI by 21 July 2019 to ensure that the investigation is “non-discriminatory and to avoid arbitrariness”.

The attack is emblematic of a broader pattern of official threats to and harassment of Indian civil society in general, and the Lawyers Collective in particular.

Lawyers Collective’s FCRA license was cancelled in November 2016, a decision that is under appeal in the Bombay High Court. The action relied upon overly broad and vague legal provisions of the FCRA that violate India’s legal obligation to respect and protect the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

“The repeated use of the FCRA to target civil society including Lawyers Collective has had a devastating chilling effect on public comment about the government,” said Zarifi.

“The law should be repealed, or substantially amended to include safeguards against arbitrary use of its provisions, and to protect freedom of expression and association,” he added.

The ICJ supports the 2016 call by three United Nations Special Rapporteurs to the Indian Government to repeal FCRA, which decried the FCRA’s use to “silence organisations involved in advocating civil, political, economic, social, environmental or cultural priorities, which may differ from those backed by the Government”.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Picture courtesy BCCL

Expressing “shock and outrage” LC says they are being victimised by the State for taking on sensitive cases where the key accused are people who occupy high offices in the present government. The statement says, “In the immediate past, the office bearers of the LC have represented the  persons  detained in the Bhima Koregaon case, the Police Commissioner of West Bengal, Rajiv Kumar and while not commenting on the merits of the case, have been vocal on the subversion of due process of law in the Courts in the matter of the alleged sexual harassment by a former  employees of the Supreme Court of India.” Indira Jaising, a founding member of LC was has also been at the forefront of several key human rights cases. Recently, Jaising was very vocal about the manner in which the SC dealt with allegations of sexual harassment against Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. It is also noteworthy that LC founding member Anand Grover was a part of a team of lawyers that petitioned the SC on behalf of 1993 blast convict Yakub Memon to postpone his execution, just hours before he was hanged. 

The statement says, “The LC has reason to believe that its officer bearers are personally being targeted for speaking up in defence of human rights, secularism and independence of the judiciary in all fora more particularly in their capacity as senior lawyers in court. The LC sees this as a blatant attack of the right to representation of all persons, particularly the marginalised and those who dissent in their views form the ruling party. It is also an attack in the right to free speech and expression and an attack on the legal profession as such.”

It is alleged that the CBI acted against LC, its functionaries as well as certain private individuals after receiving a complaint from Anil Kumar Dhasmana who is the Under Secretary in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). This complaint states that after inspection of the books of accounts and the records of the NGO, a prima facie violation of the FCRA 2010 was noticed. The complaint was made on May 15 shortly after a petition was filed in the SC by a group called Lawyers Voice making similar allegations.

On June 13, the CBI had filed an FIR against LC, Anand Grover and others for suspected offences of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, making of false statement in the declaration under the FCRA 2010, and criminal misconduct under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. In addition to invoking the provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the CBI has charged them under Sections 33, 35, 37, and 39 of the FCRA 2010 and Section 13(2) with Section 13(1)(d) of the PC Act.

Pointing out the antecedents of Lawyers Voice, the statement said, “The Lawyers Voice comprises lawyers from the BJP and its main protagonist is Mr. Neeraj is the head of the Legal Cell of the BJP in Delhi. The organization clams it has no income and no PAN card, a mandatory requirement for filing a PIL. When the Petition was filed the LC pointed out in a press statement that the petition did not have the basic averments of a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution, and therefore was not maintainable. We have expressed our surprise that notice on the Petition was issued at all in the said Petition.”

This FCRA matter originally dates back to 2016, when the MHA had cancelled the FCRA license of the organisation. LC had challenged this in the Bombay High Court and the appeal is still pending before the court. According to LC’s statement, at the time of filing the appeal, LC had pointed out “that the FCRA proceedings were taken against it because its office bearers had taken up sensitive cases against the leading figures of the BJP and the Government of India, including Mr. Amit Shah, the present Home Minister, in the Sorabbudin case, amongst others.”

The MHA had also raised objections to Jaising continuing to receive remuneration from LC when she was serving as Additional Solicitor General of India. But LC had clarified, “Ms. Jaising’s remuneration was permissible under the FCRA, it was being paid by the LC was before she became the ASG and continued during and after her tenure in that capacity. Moreover she taken the permission of the Law Minister to continue to receive the remuneration under the Law Officers (Terms and Conditions) Rules, which has been admitted by the MHA. The allegation of the MHA was premised on the assumption that as the ASG Ms. Jaising was a government servant, which she was not.”

The complete statement by LC may be read here:

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