Complaint seeks NHRC intervention over freezing of Missionaries of Charity bank accounts
Dec 29, 2021
New Delhi [India], December 29 : A complaint has been moved in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking its intervention over the controversy regarding the freezing of the bank accounts of Mother Teresa's charity organization - Missionaries of Charity - by the central government.
Activist A Rajarajan in the complaint stated that "the Missionaries of Charity an NGO inter alia running homes for abandoned children, sick and Leprosy patients headquartered in Kolkata stopped utilizing its funds maintained in its bank accounts after the Ministry of Home, Foreigners Division, FCRA wing rejected its renewal for registration to receive foreign funds under FCRA 2010."
"The acts of ministry or the missionary should not infringe on the right to life of the home inmates since the matter involves the right to life seeks urgent intervention of this commission," stated the complaint copy.
However, the Missionaries of Charity has issued recently issued a statement and clarified that "We would like to clarify that the FCRA registration of Missionaries of Charity has been neither suspended nor canceled. Further, there is no freeze ordered by the Ministry of Home Affairs on any of our bank accounts."
"We have been informed that our FCRA renewal application has not been approved. Therefore as a measure to ensure there is no lapse, we have asked our centers not to operate any of the FC accounts until the matter is resolved," said the Missionaries of Charity statement.
Earlier, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Monday said that it had refused to renew the FCRA license of Missionaries of Charity (MoC) on December 25 after it received adverse inputs while adding that it did not freeze any accounts of MoC.
In a statement, the MHA said that the renewal application under the FCRA for the renewal of FCRA registration of Missionaries of Charity was refused on December 25, 2021, for not meeting the eligibility conditions under FCRA 2010 and Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules (FCRR) 2011.
No request/revision application has been received from Missionaries of Charity for review of this refusal of renewal, the ministry said. The MHA said that 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, it added.
"The FCRA registration of MoC was valid up to December 31, 2021. MHA did not freeze any accounts of MoC. State Bank of India has informed that MoC itself sent a request to SBI to freeze its accounts," the MHA said.
