Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Friday granted protection from arrest for two weeks to activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband, hours after a lower court denied them anticipatory bail amid accusations that their NGO received funds from the United States-based Ford Foundation without government authorisation.

Setalvad, a long-time critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said she was being persecuted by the government for her campaign against the Gujarat riots of 2002 when the BJP leader was chief minister.

“I am shocked and aggrieved by the verdict as this is a petty offence. My sympathisers feel that this is an attempt (by the government) to intimidate and possibly eliminate us by the powers (sic),” she said after the sessions court rejected her bail application.

The couple’s lawyers approached the high court anticipating arrest for custodial interrogation sought by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The agency registered a case against Setalvad and her husband, Javed Anand, on July 8 and raided their home and offices a week later.

A bank account of the NGO, Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt Ltd located in Mumbai, was frozen on the instructions of the home ministry. Sources said documents recovered by the agency appeared to support its allegations.

The activist recently said she was cooperating with the CBI and her organisation’s arrangement with the Ford Foundation was permitted under law, while she panned the investigating agency for calling her a “national threat”.

Setalvad has also been accused by Gujarat police of using funds meant for victims of the Gujarat riots on purchasing wine and expensive mobile phones, apart from tampering with evidence.

(Agencies)

Mumbai: A sessions court in Mumbai rejected on Friday an anticipatory bail application filed by social activist Teesta Setalvad in connection with a case of alleged foreign donations to her NGO in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).

Setalvad, who was at the forefront of the campaign for the 2002 Gujarat riot victims, is likely to move the Bombay high court.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case against Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand on July 8 and raided their home and offices a week later. The agency is looking into whether Setalvad’s NGO Sabrang received funding from the United States-based Ford Foundation without government permission.

The Gujarat Police had recently said the social activist and her husband “misappropriated” funds meant for charity for personal expenses ranging from wine, earbuds to expensive mobile phone besides tampering with the evidence.

The CBI registered the case after the home ministry recently asked the agency to conduct a probe into the funding.

A bank account of the firm located in Mumbai was frozen on the instructions of the home ministry. Sources said certain documents were recovered by the agency, which they claimed appears to support the allegations.

Setalvad had earlier said the charges against her are baseless and she was fully cooperating with the CBI.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Expressing their solidarity with activist Teesta Setalvad, several opposition MPs including Ghulam Nabi Azad of Congress and Sharad Yadav of JD(U) today accused the Centre of “subjecting her to the worst kind of harassment” to silence voices of dissent.

In a joint statement, the opposition leaders said the recent CBI recent raid at her residence was a “blatant misuse” of the central agency for “vindictive reasons”.

Besides Yadav and Azad, who is the Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Motilal Vora of Congress, K C Tyagi of JD(U) and D P Tripathi of NCP endorsed the statement, which also bore signatures of Hannan Mollah of CPI(M) and Manoj Jha of RJD.

“We express our solidarity with Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand and their colleagues who are being subjected to the worst kind of harassment by the (Narendra) Modi government,” they said.

Setalvad has been severely critical of the BJP government in Gujarat over the 2002 riots and her NGO has been pursuing criminal cases against the accused. The state government has accused her of working at the behest of its political opponents and charged her with misappropriating money. Anand is also an activist and her husband.

The leaders hailed Setalvad, saying she had been working courageously to expose the criminal involvement of BJP leaders in the Gujarat riots, in which mostly Muslims were killed, and asserted that they were determined to support her.

They said it was no co-incidence that the raid occurred a day before the case involving former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi, both convicted, was to come up in the Gujarat High Court.

“The signatories are convinced that the Modi government is determined to silence voices of dissent like that of Teesta Setalvad… We appeal to it to end its vindictive actions,” they said.

CBI had on July 13 carried out searches at premises of social activist Setalvad and her organisation in connection with a case of alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act in receiving funds from abroad without taking prior permission from the Home Ministry.

(PTI)

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation Tuesday carried out searches at premises of social activist Teesta Setalvad and her organisation in connection with a case of alleged violation of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act in receiving funds from abroad without taking prior permission from the home ministry.

The CBI sleuths carried out searches at four places in Mumbai at the premises of Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand, Gulam Mohammed Peshimam and office of Sabrang Communications and Publishing, a move flayed by the social activist who said that she was cooperating with the CBI.

“We are surprised and shocked at this,” Teesta said, adding, “We have been offering full cooperation.”

The CBI had registered a case on July 8 against all these under IPC section related to criminal conspiracy (120-B) along with provisions of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010 and Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 1976.

“We had written a letter to CBI offering full cooperation and telling the agency that whatever so-called offences are registered against us, we will cooperate. So we don’t understand the rationale behind this entire operation,” Setalvad, who was at fore front of campaign for 2002 Gujarat riots victims, said.

“We believe that it is a caged-parrot in operation and its a political vendetta and they are trying to humiliate and intimidate us,” she said, noting “the team here is very professional but we don’t know where it will end”.

CBI sources said in New Delhi that the case was registered after the agency completed verification of all the documents submitted by the home ministry while referring the probe to the agency.

They said it is alleged that the accused named in the FIR, in a criminal conspiracy, accepted foreign contribution without registration and prior permission from the Union home ministry as mandated under FCRA norms.

The government had earlier ordered a CBI probe into the transfer of funds by US-based Ford Foundation to Sabrang Communication and Publishing Pvt Limited (SCPPL) and even froze a bank account of the firm on June 26.

It was alleged that at SCPPL violate rules of FCRA in accepting a donation of USD 2.9 lakh from Ford Foundation without getting clearance of the Home Ministry.

According to the rules, an organisation or a private firm can accept donations from overseas only after it is registered under FCRA. The donation was, therefore, a “serious violation” of FCRA provisions which mandate funding from a foreign source to only those recipients who have FCRA registration, the Home Ministry had said while ordering a CBI case.

A bank account of the firm located in Juhu, Mumbai, had also been frozen at the instruction of the Home Ministry.

The Gujarat government had earlier asked the Home Ministry to take action against Ford Foundation, alleging that the US-based organisation was “interfering in internal affairs” of the country and also “abetting communal disharmony” through an NGO run by Setalvad.

The fund transfer from Ford Foundation has, at present, to be cleared by a nodal official in the Home Ministry. In April, the government had ordered that funds from Ford Foundation should not be released by any bank to any Indian NGO without mandatory permission from the Home Ministry.

There are several cases in which the Gujarat government and Setalvad are waging legal battles. While she has filed several cases against the state government functionaries in connection with post-Godhra riots of 2002, the state police have filed a case of alleged embezzlement of funds against her.

(Agencies)