New Delhi, July 11:The CBI on Thursday carried out searches on premises of noted lawyer Anand Grover and senior lawyer Indira Jaising in connection with alleged Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) violation.
The searches are understood to be taking place at the Delhi and Mumbai offices of their NGO, however, the officials did not give any details of locations where searches are going on.
Based on a complaint filed by the foreigner’s division of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the CBI had last month registered a case against Anand Grover and his Mumbai-based NGO, Lawyers Collective, for alleged violation of the FCRA, in receiving overseas aid.
Even as the allegation was strongly disputed by Lawyers Collective in a statement issued in May, the CBI in the FIR has named Grover, the president of Lawyers Collective, and unidentified office-bearers of the organisation, besides unidentified officials.
The CBI has not named Grover’s wife and former additional solicitor general (ASG) Indira Jaising as an accused in the FIR, but the MHA complaint filed with the agency has her name mentioned. The complaint is now part of the FIR.
The ministry has alleged that Jaising, as the ASG from 2009-14, had received remunerations worth Rs 96.6 lakh from the foreign contributions received by Lawyers Collective. It has also stated that her foreign travels as ASG were funded by Lawyers Collective, using such contributions, without prior approval of the ministry.
In the complaint, the MHA had said the ASG is paid by the government from the Consolidated Fund of India and carries out very sensitive and high-level work, including inter alia, giving advice to the government in legal matters, appearing in the Supreme Court and high courts on its behalf and representing it in any reference made by the President to the apex court.
It was also alleged that Jaising violated the FCRA by “not seeking clearances from the government for receiving foreign contributions in the form of remuneration from the organisation and accepting foreign hospitality while visiting a foreign country”. With PTI inputs
