NEW DELHI, April 13: The Delhi High Court today asked the Centre to furnish within three weeks Memoranda of Associations and Articles of Association of four overseas companies which donated Rs 3.75 crore to the Congress party during 1993-95 in alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Mahinder Narain and Justice SK Mahajan pulled up the FCRA cell under the Union Home Ministry for its indecision on registering a case in this regard. The court expressed its displeasure at the documents not being placed before them. The Home Ministry recently asked the CBI to procure these documents from Antigua in the Caribbean Islands and the British Channel Islands to ascertain the share holding pattern of these companies.
The FCRA cell after conducting preliminary investigations gave a clean chit to the Congress saying as majority shareholdings of these companies were owned by Non-Resident Indians, no violation of FCRA has taken place.
The benchexpressed dissatisfaction over the probe so far and said if the government failed to furnish the documents within three weeks it would proceed to hear arguments in the case on merit.
A petition filed by Patna based journalist Madhuresh had sought prosecution of the then treasurer Sitaram Kesri and other office bearers of the Congress for getting money from abroad in violation of section four of FCRA which puts a comprehensive ban on receiving such donations from foreign companies.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
