FCRA licence of ‘Church of North India’ revoked

• The largest Christian organisation in the country

• Violated rules of receiving donations

New Delhi : The Union Home Ministry has revoked the foreign funding licence of the Church of North India, one of the country’s oldest evangelical organisations, over alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), Ministry sources said. FCRA registration is mandatory for any NGO or association if it has to receive foreign funds.

Now this organisation will not be able to accept foreign donations. For the last five decades, this organisation has been working to spread Christianity in India. It receives large donations from the US, UK, Canada, as well as Europe.

A prominent evangelical organisation that has been active by merging six different organisations since 1970. It includes the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar), Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and some other Christian organisations. This organisation controls the churches in North India.

This organisation claims that it has 22 lakh members. In addition, 28 regions of India have their own bishops, who control the churches there. The organisation claims to have over 2,200 pastors and over 4,500 churches under its control.

Under the Church of North India; 564 schools and colleges, as well as 60 nursing and medical colleges, are functioning. The country’s famous ‘Law Martinier College’ of Lakshmanpuri is also under this Church. Apart from this, many missionary schools in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand also come under it.

Allegation of a 10,000 crore land scam on the priest of the Church of North India

In 2019, some pastors of the Church of North India were accused of a land scam worth Rs 10,000 crore. In this case, some priests of the institute had accused their colleagues of selling hundreds of acres of land by forging the documents.

In the past year, more than a hundred NGOs, including well-known entities like the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, Oxfam India, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), and Care India, have faced cancellations, suspensions, denial of renewal, or deemed expiration of their FCRA licences.

Editorial Perspective 

Hindus should ask – Why are the Governments that took control of the Hindu temples on the pretext of alleged misuse of donations not taking control of such churches ?

Source : Sanatan Prabhat