The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of Missionaries of Charity (MoC), a religious congregation set up by Mother Teresa in 1950, was not renewed because of "audit irregularities", a senior government official said on Tuesday, 28 December, according to The Hindu.
The development comes after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that the renewal of FCRA registration of MoC was refused on Saturday, 25 December, for purportedly "not meeting the eligibility conditions under the FCRA 2010 and Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules (FCRR) 2011".
The MHA also said that the renewal of MoC's FCRA registration was valid up to 31 December 2021. This renewal is necessary for the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contributions.
They also alleged that while considering the MoC's renewal application, "some adverse inputs were noticed" and stated that they had not frozen the accounts of the MoC.
No adverse inputs, however, were specifically pointed out by the MHA.
Meanwhile, the returns filed by the MoC showed that 347 foreign individuals and 59 institutional donors had donated Rs 75 crore to it, and their total balance stood at Rs 103.76 crore, according to the report by The Hindu. Registered in Kolkata, the NGO has more than 250 bank accounts across India to utilise the foreign funds.
Earlier on Monday, 27 December, the MoC also clarified that ''no freeze was ordered by Ministry of Home Affairs'' on any of their bank accounts and said that they had been denied a renewal of their FCRA registration by the central government. This, they said, had led them to ask their centres not to operate their foreign currency accounts.
Prior reports had claimed that the MoC's bank accounts were frozen, and taking to Twitter, West Bengal Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee had expressed shock over the same.
Later, several international media houses of repute, such as The Guardian, BBC, Time, also highlighted the issue.
This is not the first time a charitable organisation or rights group had lost its license to receive funding for its activities from overseas donors. Last year, the Indian government froze the accounts of Greenpeace and Amnesty International.
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