Three MHA officers moved after FCRA arrests

Three senior officers in the Union home ministry’s Foreigner-II division were transferred or prematurely repatriated to their parent cadres within days of the arrest of two junior bureaucrats from the same division for allegedly seeking bribes to help clear pending FCRA registrations.

To be sure the three officers repatriated to their cadres have not been named in the bribery case. The two arrested officials, a senior accountant and an accountant, were arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell on September 28 after the MHA alerted police that they were allegedly seeking bribes by claiming they could help applicants get their Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) registrations cleared. The ministry announced their arrests on September 29.

The MHA is yet to comment on the transfers. An order issued by it on October 2 said the services of deputy secretary Rajesh Kumar T, an ICoAS officer of the 2016 batch, were “surrendered to DoPT for pre-mature repatriation to his parent cadre”.

Joint director Saurabh Bansal and deputy director Aayush Bansal were “repatriated to their parent cadre” with “immediate effect” on October 1.

According to the MHA website, Rajesh Kumar T was posted in the monitoring unit of the Foreigner-II division, while the other two officers were in its FCRA wing.

The FCRA regulates the receipt and use of foreign contributions by individuals, associations, NGOs, trusts and companies in India. The law, administered by the MHA, lays down who can receive foreign contributions and how the funds must be received, accounted for and reported.