The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday morning conducted a raid at the residence of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Durgesh Pathak after registering an FIR against him for allegedly receiving foreign donations for his party in contravention of FCRA norms. Besides Pathak, the agency booked another office bearer of the party Kapil Bhardwaj (now deceased) in the case.
The FIR was registered on a complaint from the Ministry of Home Affairs which had alleged that the party had received foreign donations in contravention of the provisions of Foreign Contribution (Regulations) Act (FCRA) 2010 (as amended in 2020).
According to the FIR, the AAP had set a body “AAP Overseas India” with volunteers in USA, Canada, Australia etc. To mobilise foreign funds for the party in India.
“During a fund raising event organised by MP in Canada in 2016, an e-mail conversation took place between Aniket Saxsena (Coordinator of MP Overseas India) and Kumar Vishwas, then Convenor of MP Overseas India). This conversation revealed that Durgesh Pathak and Kapil Bhardwaj had asked Aniket to transfer the donation of USD 29,000, directly to Durgesh Pathak and Kapil Bhardwaj through Bhagwant Toor,” the FIR alleged.
The Home Ministry sent the matter to the CBI on the basis of findings of the ED, which had found that the party had received Rs 1.08 crore of donation from 155 persons residing abroad on 404 occasions using 55 passport numbers.
The ED alleged that there are multiple donors who have used the same passport for donations.
“FCRA donations worth Rs. 51.15 lakh was received by the AAP from 19 Canadian nationals, however their nationality have been concealed by AAP in the records. One Canadian citizen Karnail Singh Sidhu has directly donated Rs 20,000 to AAP through AAP’s online portal in 2016,” the CBI FIR has alleged. The agency has alleged that 71 donors residing abroad have used 21 mobile numbers for making donations of Rs. 99.90 lakh on 256 occasions to the party while 75 donors have used 15 credit cards for making donations worth Rs. 19.92 lakh on 148 occasions.
“The AAP has claimed that 201 persons residing abroad had donated Rs. 2.65 crore using 51 e-mail IDs on 639 occasions,” the FIR alleged.
The CBI FIR alleged that receipt of contributions from foreigners by a political party is prohibited under section 3 of the FCRA Act 2010 and section 29B of the Representation of the People Act 1951.
Sources said during the course of investigation, the top brass of the party may be asked to join investigations and explain the alleged anomalies in the records.
The agency has alleged that “irregularity have been done deliberately by AAP”, with an intention to conceal identity and nationality of the real donors.
The CBI also alleged that Pathak attended a fund raising event on November 22, 15 in Canada. A handwritten raw data sheet containing real names of Canadian donors was sent by AAP volunteer to AAP overseas through e-mail.
“However, the AAP deliberately concealed their names in its official records and manipulated its records,” the FIR alleged.
At an event in Toronto in February 2016, a sum of USD 11786 was claimed to have been collected and, after deducting the expenditure of USD 3821, the amount of USD 7965 was allegedly sent to AAP in its IDBI account by using 11 Canadian passports whereas the amount was claimed to have been collected from more than 200 persons, the FIR alleged.
“The facts mentioned in letter no. 11/21022/58(445 )/2022-FCRA (MU) dated 20/05/24 disclose commission of offences punishable under section 120-B of IPC r/w section 3 r/w section 35 of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 2010 (as amended in 2020). Hence a regular case is registered against Durgesh Pathak, Office Bearer, Aam Aadmi Party, Kapil Bhardwaj, Office Bearer, Aam Aadmi Party and other unknown private persons,” CBI officials said
In a communiqués to CBI, the MHA stated that as per provisions of FCRA, 2010 , the case was examined and with the approval of the competent authority , vide letter dated 08-06-2023. The Central Security agencies have informed that use of same passport numbers for donations by different individuals raises suspicion which needs to be further investigated by concerned authorities . An email has been recovered from email dump of Aniket Saxena, an AAP volunteer, having an excel sheet as attachment. The excel sheet contains name of around 46 persons, their citizenship, mobile numbers, e-mail IDs and donation amounts (at some places). Out of these persons citizenship of several persons has been mentioned as ‘Canadian’. The data of donations accepted by AAP during the period 2014-15 to 2019-20 was obtained by ED from Pankaj Gupta, National Secretary of AAP. ED .obtained further details from payment gateways, through which the donation has been received.
“When the donations data was cross checked with the excel sheet recovered from email data, it was found that the donations data contains particulars of at least 19 persons who donated to AAP using the same mobile number or email id as found in excel sheet named “Volunteers of AAP” whose nationality is mentioned as Canadian in the excel sheet. However , names of these Canadian Nationals were changed in the data of donation provided by Pankaj Gupta and certain Indian passport numbers were mentioned ·against the changed names. It is likely that these 19 donors (many of whom have donated multiple times) were foreign nationals (Canadian) as per citizenship mentioned in the above mentioned excel list and have donated a cumulative amount of Rs. 51,15,044/-,” the MHA in a note.
It further stated that the D.O. letter dated 27-10-2022 also reports that 155’ persons residing abroad have made donations totaling to Rs. 1 02,48, 189/- on 404 occasions using 55 passport numbers. This makes it amply clear th at the passport information mentioned i n the donations data is false as two persons can not have the same passport numbers.
Pathak, who won the Rajinder Nagar Assembly seat in 2022, lost to BJP’s Umang Bajaj in the 2025 elections. He was also AAP’s in-charge for Goa during the 2022 Assembly elections.
