MHA Cancels FCRA Registration of Sabrang Trust

Sabrang
Trust made direct payment of around Rs 12 lakh from FCRA designated
account to City Bank and Union Bank of India for credit card
payments of cards belonging to Teesta and her husband Javed Anand.
The money as per the MHA order was used purely for personal gains.
The foreign contributions, according to MHA, were spent by the
couple on personal expenditure like dining in hotels, food takeaways
ordered at residence, cakes and sweets from premium outlets and also
on sundry items, sanitary napkins, etc. That was in violation of
Section 8(1) of FCRA 2010.

The
Trust spent up to 65 percent of the FCRA funds on administrative
expenses, something which is not allowed as per the law (The FC
Rules lay a cap of not more than 50% on admin costs without
permission of MHA).

Correspondents,
columnists, cartoonists, editor, owners are included under Sabrang
Communications and Publishing Private Limited. Teesta and Javed
Anand are chief functionaries/Trustees of Sabrang Trust and also
work as director, co-editors, printers, publishers of Sabrang
communications which published a magazine communalism combat. Both
entities functioned from same premises with same set of staff,
infrastructure and other resources. This is a violation of Section
3(1)(b)&(h) of FCRA 2010.

The
Trust transferred around Rs 2,50,000/- from the FCRA bank account to
domestic account, which is liable to treated as mis-utilisation of
funds under FC Rules.

Bulk
purchase of sms for propaganda using foreign funds.

While
Sabrung Trust was registered for “educational and social”
purposes, it received and spent substantive amount of foreign
contribution under “cultural” head.

Even
Javed Anand’s international medical policy for attending a Lahore
Conference was paid by foreign contribution. Same was the case for
his travel related expenses and purchase of books for attending a
PUCL conference.