Centre Cancels Rajiv Gandhi Foundation's FCRA Licence

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi is the chairperson of RGF.

Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. Image used for Representational Purpose only.

Source : https://rgfindia.org

New Delhi: The Centre has cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF), a non-government organisation associated with the Gandhi family, for alleged violations of the law, officials said, as reported by the news agency PTI.

This comes after investigations carried out by an inter-ministerial committee formed by the home ministry in 2020. "Yes, the FCRA licence of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has been cancelled after an investigation against it," PTI quoted an official as saying.

Soon after the cancellation of its FCRA licensce registration, the officer said, a written notice has been dispatched to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and its office-bearers.

The committee formed by the MHA in July 2020 has pointed its findings about the violations of various FCRA norms that have resulted in the cancellation of the registration of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which was established in 1991, the officer privy to the development said.

An inquiry started against the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in July 2020 when the MHA constituted an inter-ministerial committee headed by an Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer to investigate three Gandhi family foundations-- Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) and Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust-- for possible violations of the money laundering act, Income Tax act and FCRA.

The committee comprised officers from the MHA, Ministry of Finance as well as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and was mandated to investigate if the trusts, run by the Gandhi family and other Congress leaders, manipulated any documents while filing income tax or misused and laundered money received from foreign countries.

The committee investigated three Gandhi family foundations-- Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF), Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) and Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust-- for any possible violations of the money laundering act, Income Tax act and FCRA, as reported by the news agency ANI.

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi is the chairperson of RGF. The other trustees of the NGO include former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former finance minister P Chidambaram, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

RGF was set up in 1991. It is an NGO which worked on a number of critical issues including health, science and technology, women and children, disability support, etc., from 1991 till 2009. It also worked in the education sector, according to its website.

(With agencies' Inputs)