A case has been filed against environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta and his non-profit by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for alleged violation of foreign funding rules.
Mr Dutta, who has co-authored a book on forest conservation with Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, runs the non-profit Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE).
The CBI alleged Mr Dutta got Rs 41 Lakh in foreign contributions in fiscal 2014 from US-based 'Earth Justice', a non-profit that funds environment lawyers in several nations to litigate against coal projects.
Mr Dutta then created LIFE Proprietorship, which subsequently received Rs 22 crore from Earth Justice during 2016 to 2021 as "professional receipt", the CBI said.
The CBI alleged Earth Justice and another US-based non-profit, Sandler Foundation, have been planning to fund legal activism and take down India's existing and proposed coal projects, which is a violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
The investigators said these funds were meant to harm India's national and economic security.
They said the European Climate Foundation is also routing $120,000 via Earth Justice to Mr Dutta's LIFE for litigation, and so the cases that LIFE is fighting in India are actually funded by the foreign non-profits, which are not the litigants.
