The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Monday said the Missionaries of Charity’s application for renewal of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) registration was refused on 25 December for not meeting eligibility conditions as some adverse inputs were received.
In a statement, the MHA also said that it did not freeze any account of the Missionaries of Charity, but the State Bank of India has said that the organisation itself sent a request to the bank to freeze its accounts. The MHA statement came hours after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed the Centre had frozen all bank accounts of the organisation founded by Mother Teresa. “Shocked to hear that on Christmas, Union Ministry FROZE ALL BANK ACCOUNTS of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in India! Their 22,000 patients & employees have been left without food & medicines. While the law is paramount, humanitarian efforts must not be compromised,” Banerjee tweeted.
The Missionaries of Charity too on Monday clarified that no such freeze was ordered by the MHA. “We would like to clarify that the FCRA registration of Missionaries of Charity has been neither suspended nor cancelled. Further, there is no freeze ordered by the Ministry of Home Affairs on any of our 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,” reads the Missionaries of Charity statement.
The MHA said the application for the renewal of FCRA registration of MoC was refused on 25 December for not meeting the eligibility conditions under the FCRA 2010 and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules (FCRR) 2011. “No request or revision application has been received from Missionaries of Charity for review of this refusal of renewal,” the statement said.
The Missionaries of Charity’s registration under the FCRA was valid up to 31 October 2021. The MHA said the validity was subsequently extended up to 31 December 2021, along with other FCRA associations whose renewal application were pending renewal. “However, while considering the MoC’s renewal application, some adverse inputs were noticed. In consideration of these inputs on record, the renewal application of MoC was not approved,” the statement said. “The State Bank of India has said that MoC itself sent a request to SBI to freeze its accounts,” the statement said. The Missionaries of Charity is a Catholic religious congregation established in 1950 by Mother Teresa.