Bengaluru: The Archbishop of Bengaluru, Peter Machado, has denied allegations that he is part of a scam involving foreign donations, and has told ThePrint he is open to any kind of probe.
The allegations have been made by several parties, including a retired Karnataka High Court judge and a local Christian group, the All Karnataka Catholic Christian Association (AKCCA), which claims that the Asha Charitable Trust owned by the archdiocese had misappropriated funds to the tune of around Rs 300 crore. The group has demanded a federal probe in the matter.
Speaking to ThePrint, Archbishop Peter Machado said that allegations are being made only to tarnish the image of the Church. “I am open to any probe. I have nothing to hide,” he said in a telephonic interview.
“The allegations are baseless and we would like to stress that we have an account of every penny that we receive and spend. Our accounts are audited and every year, we file our tax returns,” Machado added. “If there was any form of fraud, wouldn’t it have been noticed by the agencies?”
A senior official from the Archbishop House, on the condition of anonymity, told ThePrint that there had been a case of misappropriation but by an employee of Asha Trust.
“The financial fraud was by a low-level officer. The amount was Rs 90 lakh. We have registered a complaint against the individual who worked as an accountant with Asha Trust,” he said. “The police are investigating the case. Simultaneously we have set up an internal committee to prevent such cases in the future.”
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‘Archbishop collected funds for children, Coorg floods’
Among those leading the charges against the Archbishop is a retired Karnataka High Court judge, Justice Michael Saldanha, who has written to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seeking a thorough probe in this matter.
“I wrote to the ED in June; I am yet to hear from them,” Saldanha told ThePrint. “There is enough evidence to show that fraud has been committed by the trust and the stakeholders have just made one person a scapegoat in the matter.”
The allegations are that the Archbishop, through the trust set up in 2004, collected funds in the name of educating underprivileged children but used it to further his own interests.
The former justice has written to ED officials asking them to seize all the documents of accounts of the trust since 2008 to ascertain how the funds, collected in the name of educating children, have been utilised.
In 2018, Justice Saldanha (retd) had also accused Machado and the Mysuru Bishop K.A. William of “misappropriating Rs 49.5 crore” collected as part of the Coorg relief funds. These funds were allegedly collected to rehabilitate people when floods lashed through Karnataka, rendering several homeless.
Saldanha in that case alleged that Machado and William raised the money at an event where Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam performed for free. Police are yet to begin investigations on this complaint.
“Where is that money? Show us the records of where the money has been spent. The same with this trust. Why are they afraid to show their books of accounts and their expenditure,” Saldanha asked.
‘Archbishop unnecessarily being dragged in’
The church official quoted earlier, however, told ThePrint that the Archbishop’s name was being unnecessarily dragged into the controversy.
“The Archbishop’s name is being dragged in the issue only to sensationalise it. By naming the top man in an allegation like this, they want to garner headlines in the media,” said the official from the Archbishop House.
Explaining the types of funding received by the church, the official said that there are two types of contributions – one made by foreign donors that is monitored under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act and contributions by Indian donors, monitored when they file their returns with the income tax department.
“Until date we have received just Rs 16 crore — Rs 8 crore from foreign funding and the remaining from donors in India,” the official said. “Where is the question of multi-million dollars fraud? We would be happy to see where they have got the figure of Rs 300 crore from. We would be happy if we could generate that kind of funds.”
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