Court seeks CBI response on MHA official's bail plea

A special court today asked CBI to file its response by tomorrow on the bail plea of a Home Ministry official, arrested for allegedly issuing FCRA notices arbitrarily to several NGOs for financial gains.
Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar put up the matter for hearing tomorrow and extended the judicial custody of accused Anand Joshi, an under secretary in the Home Ministry, till June 17.
The accused, who was produced before the court from his judicial custody, moved the bail application on the ground that his custody was not required in the case and should be granted the relief.
Earlier, the court had sent Joshi, who was arrested from west Delhi on May 15, to jail after the CBI submitted that his further custodial interrogation was not required in the case.

CBI had earlier claimed that files relating to several NGOs had gone missing from Home Ministry and they were recovered from his house although he was not supposed to take them away.
It had alleged that Joshi had been issuing notices dishonestly to a large number of NGOs/societies registered under the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) 2010, which have been receiving significant amount of foreign contributions, in an arbitrary manner.

CBI had said some of these organisations were Care India, Snehalya Charitable Trust, Indian HIV/AIDS Alliance and All India Primary Teachers Federation and alleged that representatives of some of these organisations were called and Joshi had demanded and obtained illegal gratification.

Joshi was arrested on May 15 after he allegedly gave unconvincing answers to the questions posed by a team of Special Crime division of the CBI, including those related to disappearance of files on Sabrang Trust of activist Teesta Setalvad.
Joshi has rejected the charge and instead accused his
seniors of pressuring him to give clean chit to NGOs. In a note which he had left before leaving home, Joshi claimed he had been subjected to "mental harassment" in recent months.
CBI had alleged that Joshi laundered ill-gotten earnings in various immovable assets and certain private firms floated by him and that his wife was one of the directors in them.

It alleged that even after his transfer from FCRA division, he continued to indulge in corrupt activities on the basis of documents in his unauthorised possession.
The agency claimed that during the search conducted at Joshi's house, one file pertaining to FCRA about private NGO Care India Solutions for Sustainable Development has been seized and his interrogation was needed to know as to how the official files made way to his house and what was his intention in bringing them.
The matter came to light after files pertaining to alleged FCRA violations by two NGOs run by Setalvad went missing from the Ministry. The files were traced and restored to the FCRA division but CBI was asked to probe the matter.

It was noticed that the files had gone missing when the Home Ministry took a decision to cancel FCRA registration of one of Setalvad's NGOs, Sabrang Trust, sources had said.