Even if Controversial FCRA Amendment Passes, There’s Still a Lot of Prosecuting to be Done

From 2004 to 2010, there are at least 25 instances of the BJP and Congress receiving funding from the Indian subsidiaries of foreign companies.

New Delhi: Indian political parties aren’t completely off the hook when it comes to receiving foreign funding, even if the Government’s furtive attempt to amend the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 2010 (FCRA) goes through.

Data from a public interest litigation filed in the Delhi High Court in 2013 shows that there are, at the very minimum, twenty five instances of the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party receiving funding from the Indian subsidiaries of various foreign companies before 2010.

The year ‘2010’ is key here because the newly proposed amendment, which will give the Congress and BJP a pass from 2014 Delhi High Court judgement on foreign funding, will be applied retrospectively with effect from September 26, 2010.

“In the FCRA Act 2010, in section 2… the following proviso shall be inserted with effect from 26 September, 2010,” the amendment, which seeks to redefine Vedanta and other foreign companies as ‘Indian companies’, reads.

The table below however shows that both the BJP and Congress received funding in the range of Rs. 5 lakh to Rs. 5 crore from the Indian subsidiaries of Vedanta, Dow Chemicals and Switzerland-based Mundipharma over the course of six years from 2004 to 2010.

The data in the table was taken primarily from public sources; in this case from the contribution reports of various political parties, which is available with the Election Commission of India. It was compiled by the Ahmedabad-based Association of Democratic Reforms (To see the original document and list, go here).

According to former government Secretary E A S Sarma, all foreign corporate donations made before September 26th, 2010, are violative of the earlier FCRA (1976) and the Representation of the People Act (RPA).

The donations listed out in the table above, therefore, could potentially be looked into and found to be illegal, even if the Modi government’s decision to amend the FCRA (2010) goes through.

In a letter to cabinet secretary P K Sinha, Sarma says that “concerned political parties should be prosecuted under both the RPA and the earlier FCRA. Failing to do it would imply that the governments concerned had abetted the offences and, therefore, would also become liable to be proceeded against”.

When The Wire reached out to Sarma, he emphasized that there was a need to keep FCRA implementation outside the purview of government control. “My worry is that they take prompt action when it comes to [the foreign funding] of NGOs but when it comes to corporates and political parties, less action is seen,” he said.

Another important issue that Sarma draws attention to in his letter, when it comes to FCRA violations, is that the new amendment will only become applicable to “donations received from subsidiaries of foreign companies specifically covered by that amendment”.

However, when one looks at the donations in the table above, it becomes clear that there are certain foreign companies such as Dow Chemicals who appear to have allegedly passed on donations without “going through the conduit of subsidiaries”. This sort of foreign funding is violative of even the newly amended FCRA.