E-Paper
ED faces flak over Lalit Modi passport
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is facing questions for not persuading the foreign ministry to challenge a court order that restored corruption-hit former IPL boss Lalit Modi’s passport in 2014, though it was investigating his case.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is facing questions for not persuading the foreign ministry to challenge a court order that restored corruption-hit former IPL boss Lalit Modi’s passport in 2014, though it was investigating his case.
His passport came into focus after a British newspaper reported that foreign minister Sushma Swaraj exercised her influence to help Modi get British travel documents at a time when he was facing serious charges of financial fraud in the IPL, a highly successful Twenty-20 cricket tournament he had started.
The ED, which is the country’s top agency to curb economic offences, was in touch with the foreign ministry when a single-judge bench of the Delhi High Court dismissed Modi’s appeal after his passport was revoked over financial fraud charges, prompting him to move a division bench.
The division bench ruled in his favour but the ED never contacted the foreign ministry to make a case for challenging the court ruling, a source said on Tuesday.
Modi was issued a fresh passport from the Indian High Commission in London in September 2014 following the court order.
The opposition Congress sought to know who took the decision not to challenge the high court order.
