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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Clerical errors, not violation: Greenpeace

Clerical errors, not violation: Greenpeace

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published Published on May 9, 2015   modified Modified on May 9, 2015
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: Greenpeace India today claimed the Union home ministry had interpreted the environmental group's "unintentional clerical errors" as violations of foreign funding laws and portrayed its campaigns for clean air, water, and energy as anti-national activities.

In a response to the ministry - which has suspended Greenpeace's access to foreign funds and frozen its domestic bank accounts - the NGO has claimed it neither violated the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) nor acted against India's interests.

In its 26-page response, Greenpeace has also pointed out two "clerical errors" in the ministry's own document listing the allegations against it, seeking to contrast what it says is a "zero-tolerance" approach of the government to the NGO's "unintentional clerical errors".

The ministry had last month initiated the action against Greenpeace, alleging the NGO had violated FCRA, "prejudicially affected" India's interests, and campaigned against coal projects in India, and tried to influence government policies.

The ministry has charged Greenpeace with transferring funds from its foreign account to domestic ones, breaching FCRA rules. But the NGO has claimed that in an attempt to "keep the accounts absolutely clean", the transfers were first made out of Indian funds, the expenses incurred were charged to the foreign accounts , accounted, with a reimbursement into the Indian accounts. This, it has claimed, this "is in no way a violation of the FCRA".

Greenpeace had over a six-year period from 2007-08 to 2012-13 received Rs 35.5 crore, while the amounts over which the ministry has raised issues total Rs 22.5 lakh. This, Greenpeace said, is only 0.64 per cent of the foreign grants received.

Greenpeace has attributed the opening balances shown as NIL in its account statements for the fiscal years 2008-09, 2010-11 and 2011-12 to typographical errors during each of those years. "All accounting work is subject to clerical errors when it is done by human hands," it said. Its response was released to the media today.

It has pointed out that the ministry's document making allegations against Greenpeace also has two similar clerical errors. At one point, an interest amount is mistakenly mentioned as Rs 15,31,704, while the actual amount was Rs 15,13,704. At another point, the ministry has mentioned a figure of Rs 20,89,661, while the actual figure should have been Rs 2,08,96,661. Greenpeace said it has cited these as examples of inadvertent human errors.

"Our clerical errors have been misinterpreted as malafide intentions," added Vinuta Gopal, Greenpeace's climate and energy campaigner.

While the FCRA rules specify that foreign funds should not be used to prejudicially affect India's security, strategic, scientific, economic, or public interests, Greenpeace has said "holding and advocating views which are contrary to the economic, agricultural, industrial and financial policies pursued by the government of the day at a given point in time cannot be considered as against public interest".

Over the past decade, Greenpeace has campaigned against genetically modified crops and intensification of coal-based energy, as well as raised issues relating to nuclear power projects. "Our activities further public interest and promote the economic, strategic, security, and scientific interests of the state," the organisation has claimed in its response to the ministry.

Sections of India's scientific community have in the past decried the environmental organisation's campaigns against genetically modified crops and nuclear energy as unscientific and baseless.

The Telegraph, 9 May, 2015, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150509/jsp/nation/story_19102.jsp


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