Hyderabad: The Supreme Court has stayed the arrest of members of OM-Operation Mobilisation India, a city based Christian charitable trust, in a case pending with the CID against the Trust members.
The management of the Trust has challenged an order of a single judge refusing to quash the criminal proceedings pending against the Trust members. The two-member bench comprising Justice J. Chelameswar and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer that heard the appeal on Saturday, granted a stay on the arrest of the Trust members.
The single judge of the High Court had dismissed the petition by Dr Joseph D’Souza and seven others seeking to quash the criminal proceedings initiated against them on the complaint of Gowripaga Albert Lael of the city.
The complainant, Lael, alleged that the petitioners received funds from foreign donors for providing free education and meals to Dalit children studying in their Good Shepherd Schools. But the petitioners intentionally did not reveal the information that it collected fees and donations from each student studying in the Good Shepherd Schools, which was supposed to provide free education.
The Crime Investigation Department, which investigated the case, found that the foreign donors were donating $27 to $33 per month, per child, for education and separate funds for uniforms. The OM Group of Charities also gets large donations from Indian donors for Dalit children, and these funds were not credited to Operation Mercy India Foundation, which runs the schools, and were shown in the accounts of Good Shepherd Community Society, which runs churches.
The CID has charged the members of the charitable group with cheating Dalit people by manipulating the records, and committing breach of trust of the foreign donors, Indian donors, and Dalit downtrodden people with the criminal intention of siphoning off the funds of OM Group of Charities.
The petitioners contended that the complaint was lodged against them with a view to harass them and earlier also some disgruntled elements had lodged similar complaints and police have filed final reports.
They submitted that the complainant was an employee of the trust and he lodged the complaint because he had a grudge against the trust members after he was fired.
The Supreme Court, while issuing the notices to the respondents, including the Enforcement Directorate, granted stay of arrest of the petitioners and posted the case for hearing immediately after the summer vacation.
