Amnesty India’s CEO Aakar Patel has written extensively about issues of governance and communalism in India and many senior civil society leaders saw this action of the enforcement directorate coming.
The enforcement directorate has issued a show cause notice to Amnesty India International Private Ltd. (AIIPL) and its CEO Aakar Patel for contravention of the provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
It has also imposed a penalty to the tune of around 62 crore rupees on the human rights defenders’ group.
The enforcement directorate said that Amnesty International, UK, had been remitting a huge amount of foreign contribution through its Indian entities following foreign direct investment route to expand its activities in India.
The agency said that AIIPL was executing such activities in order to evade Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), despite denial of prior registration or permissions to AIIFT and other trusts under FCRA by the Home Affairs Ministry.
Aakar Patel has written extensively about issues of governance and communalism in India and many senior civil society leaders saw this action of the enforcement directorate coming.
Interestingly, Amnesty was among the first international human rights defenders’ organisation that spoke up for Lal Krishna Advani when he was arrested by the Indira Gandhi government during the emergency imposed in 1977.
