NEW DELHI, May 16 : A Delhi court on Monday sent to five-day CBI custody an under secretary in the Union Home Ministry in connection with a case against him of allegedly dishonestly issuing FCRA notices to several NGOs for financial gains.
Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar allowed the probe agency to quiz Anand Joshi, who was arrested yesterday from west Delhi, in its custody till May 20.
Seeking Mr. Joshi’s custody, CBI argued that files relating to several NGOs had gone missing from the Home Ministry and they were recovered from his house and he was not supposed to take them away.
It contended that he was neither cooperating in the probe nor disclosing relevant facts and his custodial interrogation was required to find out how those files came to his house. CBI alleged in court that Joshi had been issuing notices dishonestly to a large number of NGOs/ societies registered under the FCRA 2010, which have been receiving significant amount of foreign contributions, in an arbitrary manner. It said some of these organisations are Care India, Snehalya Charitable Trust, Indian HIV/AIDS Alliance and All India Primary Teachers Federation and alleged that the representatives of some of these organisations were called and Joshi demanded and obtained illegal gratification.
It further said when the CBI team had gone to his house, he not present there and even his mobile phone was switched off from May 11 to May 15 and he had left his house leaving a false letter behind. The custody plea, however, was opposed by Joshi’s counsel who said his mobile was not switched off and he had lost his phone in Ujjain and in his 24 years long career he was not even issued an office memo.
Mr. Joshi was arrested on Sunday after he allegedly gave unconvincing answers to the questions posed by a team of Special Crime division of the CBI, including those related to disappearance of files related to Sabrang Trust of activist Teesta Setalvad.
Mr. Joshi, who had disappeared on the morning of May 11 from his home in Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, was yesterday picked up from Tilak Nagar area of West Delhi and taken to the CBI headquarters for questioning.
The case was slapped against Joshi and some other unnamed persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices and arbitrarily issuing notices to several NGOs, registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which were receiving foreign contributions, including activist Teesta Setalvad’s Sabrang Trust.