MHA Cancels CPR’s FCRA Registration for ‘misusing’ Foreign Funds

NEW DELHI: The Union home ministry has cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) for alleged misutilisation of overseas contribution and used it to affect India’s economic interests while the public think-tank termed the government move as “incomprehensible and disproportionate” and vowed to seek legal recourse against the action.

The CPR is led by Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s daughter Yamini Aiyar. When the FCRA registration of an organisation is cancelled or suspended, it is barred from receiving any funding from abroad or foreign donors and the home ministry’s “actions have had a debilitating impact on the institution’s ability to function by choking all sources of funding”, the CPR said in a statement on Wednesday.

The home ministry action came nearly a year after it suspended NGO’s registration under FCRA and it was under scrutiny after a survey was carried out by the Income Tax department in September 2022.