The senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer heading the department which imposed restrictions on U.S.-based donor Compassion International, triggering aggressive American protests, has been abruptly shunted out.
Bipin Bihari Mallick, additional secretary, Foreigners Division was on Friday afternoon transferred to Disaster Management wing, which was carved out only on Friday. Mr. Mallick, a 1986 batch IAS officer of Maharashtra cadre, was put in charge of the Foreigners Division in July.
The Home Ministry had placed the Colorado-based donor under a “watch list” on March 28 on the basis of reports by security agencies which accused it of funding NGOs involved in religious conversions. The move meant that the donor could not directly transfer the funds to 344 NGOs and every transaction had to be cleared by the Home Ministry, as reported first by The Hindu.
Compassion International has a budget of Rs. 292 crore for India.
A day before he was transferred, Mr. Mallick had given a go-ahead to invite the representatives of Compassion International for a hearing. He had also asked his department to furnish evidence that Compassion International was funding NGOs involved in religious conversions.
It was Mr. Mallick who gave a clearance to cancel the Foreign Contribution regulation Act (FCRA) licence of Lawyers Collective, an advocacy group run by noted lawyer and former Additional Solicitor-General Indira Jaising. He had also suspended the FCRA licence of Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s NGO, Islamic Research Foundation, and initiated action against one of his other NGOs.
