Amnesty International Fined 52 Crores For FEMA Violation

Amnesty International fined 52 crores for FEMA violation, accused of soliciting foreign funds without FCRA license.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has imposed a fine of Rs 52 crore on Amnesty International, an international human rights organization, for violating the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

Amnesty CEO Aakar Patel has also been fined Rs 10 crore in the same case.

Amnesty and Aakar Patel are accused of soliciting funds from abroad and using them for other activities without the FCRA license of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

A senior ED official said that Amnesty International continued to solicit money from abroad from 2010 to 2018 despite not having an FCRA license.

The biggest thing is that during this period Rs 51.72 crore was brought by showing export of services (mainly IT, finance, consultancy) and was used for the activities of Amnesty.

Amnesty could not produce single evidence of the export of services in the investigation.

Whereas the evidence of the use of money from abroad for other purposes was present with the investigating agency.

The senior official said that this is a direct violation of FCRA norms and hence it has been decided to impose a penalty on Amnesty equal to this amount.

The PMLA adjudicating authority on Friday also approved the ED’s decision to impose the fine.

However, Amnesty and Aakar Patel can appeal against the decision of the Adjudicating Authority to the PMLA Appellate Tribunal.

Significantly, the Home Ministry had refused to grant the FCRA license in view of the anti-India activities of Amnesty.

Amnesty has been soliciting foreign funds from time to time since 2000 with the prior permission of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

After 2010, the Home Ministry also stopped giving prior permission. After this Amnesty decided to solicit funds by showing export of services to continue its activities.