The home ministry has recommended a CBI investigation into prominent NGO Oxfam India for alleged violations of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA), including diverting foreign donations received by it to other NGOs, including those also under CBI scrutiny, and engaging in activities other than its declared "social" purpose for registration under FCRA.
The continuous transfer of Oxfam India's foreign receipts to other entities even after the FCRA was revised on September 29, 2020 to prohibit such transfers, according to sources who spoke to the media, is among the alleged FCRA violations forwarded to the CBI for investigation.
The Centre for Policy Research (CPR), whose FCRA licence was recently suspended due to an ongoing I-T probe, and Aman Biradari, an activist Harsh Mander's NGO that is also under CBI investigation for allegedly receiving foreign funding without being registered under the FCRA, are two of the NGOs that Oxfam India passed on to or routed its foreign funds to.
Incidentally, the home ministry had in December 2021 rejected Oxfam India’s application for renewal of FCRA licence, citing FCRA violations and “public interest’. This rendered the regional affiliate of Oxfam International family ineligible to receive or utilise funds from foreign sources. In January 2022, Oxfam’s FCRA accounts were inspected by MHA. All these actions came as part of MHA’s concerted crackdown - directly supervised by home minister Amit Shah on NGOs allegedly acting in contravention of FCRA and Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules, 2011 (FCRR). Both FCRA and FCRR were made more stringent through amendments in 2020.