New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday tweeted that a Union ministry had frozen all bank accounts of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in India, leaving their 22,000 patients and employees “without food and medicines”.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, however, said it had not frozen any account but “refused to renew FCRA (Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act) licence” of the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) on 25 December after it “received adverse inputs”. It further said the State Bank of India (SBI) had said that MoC itself had “sent a request to SBI to freeze its accounts”.
“The renewal application under FCRA for the renewal of FCRA registration of Missionaries of Charity (MoC) was refused on 25 Dec 2021 for not meeting the eligibility conditions under FCRA 2010 and Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules (FCRA) 2011,” a statement by the MHA said.
“No request or revision application has been received from Missionaries of Charity (MoC) for review of this refusal of renewal,” it said.
In a statement, MoC said their FCRA registration “has been neither suspended nor cancelled”.
It said that “no freeze was ordered by the Ministry of Home Affairs” on any of their bank accounts.
“We have been informed that our FCRA renewal application has not been approved. Therefore, as a measure to ensure there is no lapse, we have asked our centres not to operate any of the FC accounts until the matter is resolved,” a statement by Sr M. Prema M.C., Superior General, said.
“We appreciate the concern of our well-wishers and extend our heartiest greetings for Christmas and New Year,” the statement added.
‘Organisation’s FCRA was only valid up to 31 December’
Once FCRA registration is granted, it is valid for a five-year period. An organisation has to subsequently apply afresh for grant of registration.
According to the MHA, Missionaries of Charity was registered under FCRA, and its registration was valid up to 31 October 2021. This was subsequently extended up to 31 December 2021, along with other FCRA associations whose registrations were pending renewal.
However, while considering the MoC’s renewal application, some adverse inputs were noticed, the statement said.
On 10 November 2020, the MHA notified the much-awaited FCRA Rules 2020. The rules made the process of receiving funding from abroad more stringent.
According to the rules, the MHA can act after holding a “summary inquiry” on the basis of any information or report. If, after this inquiry, the ministry has reason to believe that a person (‘person’ includes associations), who has been granted prior permission to receive foreign funding, has contravened any of the provisions of the Act, it can freeze accounts.
The ministry, pending any further inquiry, can direct that the person (or association) shall not utilise any unutilised funds from a foreign contribution. It can also block the person from receiving any remaining portion of this foreign contribution that’s yet to arrive, or as the case may be, any additional foreign contribution, without prior approval from the central government.
It’s still unclear if any summary inquiry was held in connection with the funds of the Missionaries of Charity, or under which violations of the FCRA rules the accounts were frozen.
In this case, however, the renewal application under FCRA was refused, which technically means that MoC can no longer receive foreign funding.
Charity founded by Mother Teresa
The charity was founded in 1950 by the late Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic nun who lived and worked in Kolkata for most of her life and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
It was also accused of being involved in an alleged “child adoption and selling racket” in Jharkhand in July 2018.
In an official statement earlier in the day, Fr Dominic Gomes, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Calcutta, had called the alleged freezing of accounts “a cruel Christmas gift to the poorest of the poor”.
“Besides over 22,000 direct dependants and beneficiaries at their centres across the country, MC Sisters and Brothers reach out to uplift thousands and are often the only friends of the lepers and social outcasts no one will even venture near,” it said.
It further added, “This latest attack on the Christian community and their social outreach is even more a dastardly attack on the poorest of India’s poor, who the MC congregation serves.”
(Edited by Rohan Manoj)
Also read: Christianity hasn’t failed in India. Conversion isn’t its only goal