In yet another twist in the Lalit Modi saga, the U.K. government now confirms that the previous Congress-led government in India did, through official channels, raise the question of Mr. Modi’s resident status in the U.K.
“We can confirm that in 2013, Mr. Chidambaram, the then Indian Finance Minister, raised the question of Mr. Lalit Modi’s resident status with [his counterpart] Mr. [George] Osborne [Chancellor of the Exchequer]. The Minister made sure that he passed on the details to the relevant departments for further action,” was the cryptic reply of a spokesperson from the Treasury office to The Hindu . The “relevant departments” could only have been those of Home and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Mr. Chidambaram had recently called for the Indian government to release the official correspondence between him and Mr. Osborne in which he had urged the British government to send Mr. Modi back to India to face investigations in the 16 cases the Enforcement Directorate had filed against him. Mr. Modi’s passport had been impounded by the Indian government in 2011.
Mr. Modi claimed that the former minister had “illegally” revoked his passport.
Published - June 20, 2015 03:03 am IST
