NEW DELHI, May 8 -- The latest victim of weaponization of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) is environmental lawyer Rtiwick Dutta and the NGO promoted by him, Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE), as the Ministry of Home Affairs has initiated a CBI enquiry against it. The case against Dutta, according to an article published in The Wire, is that an overseas-based organization has funded LIFE's legal activism to "take down India's existing and proposed coal projects". It appears that the CBI is not aware that it is civil society's right to question the executive decisions in a democracy and to seek judicial intervention with the help of legal counsel.

The government doesn't seem to be happy with Dutta's legal suppor...