In what could be fresh trouble for the AAP, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has informed the Home Ministry that Arvind Kejriwal’s party collected Rs 7.08 crore from overseas in violation of forex norms.
The ED said that the AAP received funds from multiple donors from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, and other countries. The real identity of foreign donors had been concealed by the AAP in their book of accounts to circumvent the restrictions on foreign donations to political parties, the agency said.
The foreign donation was directly deposited to AAP’s IDBI bank account. The agency said that it found siphoning of foreign funding by AAP leaders including Delhi MLA Durgesh Pathak in his personal bank account.
The central agency said that this amount had been raised in violation of the provisions of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010, and the Representation of the People Act, 1951 by “concealing, mis-declaring and manipulating the identities and nationalities of foreign donors”.
The ED has substantiated the charges through the contents of e-mails exchanged between various AAP volunteers and functionaries including Aniket Saxena (Coordinator of AAP Overseas India) Kumar Vishwas (then Convenor of AAP Overseas India, Kapil Bhardwaj (AAP Member) and Pathak.
The investigations so far revealed that amounts were collected through fund-raising campaigns in the US and Canada and identities of actual donors had been concealed in the books of accounts maintained by the AAP in order to “circumvent the restrictions imposed under FCRA on donations by foreign citizens to a political party”.
The agency said that the analysis of data on foreign donations revealed that multiple donors used the same passport numbers, same e-mail ID, same mobile number, and same credit cards for donation.
The FCRA violation and other irregularities in receiving foreign funds by the AAP emerged during a probe in a case registered in the Fazilka district of Punjab against an international drugs cartel involved in the smuggling of heroin from Pakistan.
In this connection, a Special Court in Fazilka had issued a summons to the then AAP MLA from Bholath in Punjab, Sukhpal Singh Khaira as an accused to face the trial. During the investigation, searches were conducted at the residential premises of Khaira, and his associates which resulted in the seizure of documents containing details of foreign donations (four type-written pages containing a list of donors in the USA and eight hand-written pages of diary).
The ED alleged that the scrutiny of the seized documents revealed receipt of foreign donations totalling to $1,19,000. Khaira in his statement disclosed that the foreign funding of $1,19,000 was raised during an overseas fund-raising campaign in the USA organised by AAP, in April-May, 2015 just before the upcoming Punjab Assembly Elections 2017.
The ED said that in this context, Pankaj Gupta, National Secretary of AAP, was summoned who admitted that AAP had been receiving foreign donations either through cheques or through an online portal.
The AAP rejected the charge, saying this is an old case, “for which all responses have already been given to ED, CBI, MHA, and the Election Commission.” Delhi minister Atishi claimed this was a conspiracy by the BJP to defame AAP. “BJP does this before every election. In the next four days, many such false allegations will be made. Modi Ji is scared of CM Kejriwal,” Atishi said.
(With inputs from Arvind Ojha and Munish Chandra Pandey)
Read More: AAP received Rs 7.08 cr foreign funds from 2014-2022, violated forex norms: ED