Ten months after the Delhi High Court restored former IPL chief Lalit Modi’s passport, the government is finally set to move the Supreme Court against the decision.
Though an appeal should have been a matter of routine, the delay was due to a disagreement between the Ministry of External Affairs and the Enforcement Directorate on who should take the lead in moving the apex court.
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The Ministry of External Affairs claimed that the Enforcement Directorate should have approached the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court order restoring former IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi’s passport, as the case was being handled and investigated by the probe agency, while the MEA only got involved, technically, since the passport division comes under it.
The ED on the other hand asserted that the MEA was the actual respondent in the case and it should have been its responsibility to file an appeal.
The matter was cleared up by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday when he said that the decision to appeal against the HC order lay with the passport authorities.
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Challenging the verdict
However, while an official confirmed that the MEA was now ready to take the matter to the Supreme Court, the Ministry still wants the ED to come on board to provide stronger evidence in order to challenge the High Court verdict.
The High Court had observed that an investigation under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) did not entail custodial interrogation and observed that the ED should have pushed for an alternative method of questioning such as video-conferencing rather than revoking his passport.
Mr. Modi was issued a fresh passport from the Indian High Commission in London in September last year following the court order. Opposition parties have been quick to criticise the government for its failure to file an appeal in the case with senior Congress leaders wondering if the delay was actually by design.