File photo of former IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley today indicated that there has been a "confusion" regarding the shades of blue in the Blue Corner Notice issued to former IPL chief Lalit Modi.
The "light blue cornered notice issued by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) issued in 2010 is still valid" against Lalit Modi, the minister said in response to a query. But it was not the same as the Blue Cornered Notice issued by the Interpol, he indicated.
A Blue Corner Notice is issued in cases of economic offences and means that the authorities need to know the whereabouts of the person against whom it is issued at all times.
The DRI today confirmed to NDTV that the notice had never been withdrawn -- seemingly contradicting the claim of Lalit Modi's lawyer, Mehmood Abdi, who said at a media conference yesterday that there was no such notice against his client.
"The Interpol secretariat says no blue corner notice has been issued and this claim that has been flying around for the last two days has been demolished," Mr Abdi had said yesterday.
The DRI had issued the notice in 2010 at the request of the Enforcement Directorate, the agency probing the IPL betting racket. The notice was valid even after the court had restored Lalit Modi's passport to him in August 2014, the DRI said.
The Congress has alleged that the notice, contrary to Lalit Modi's claims, was valid at the time External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had helped him get emergency travel papers in Britain.
The party has also claimed that Lalit Modi's claims of travelling to Portugal to be with his wife, who was undergoing a cancer operation, were false. The Modis, party spokesman Anand Sharma said today, first attended a family wedding and then went for a holiday to Ibiza.
"There was no invasive surgery - verifiable at the hospital in Portugal ," Mr Sharma said. "Lalit Modi and his wife were holidaying in Ibiza, when the case of his passport revocation came out."
The party has dismissed Ms Swaraj's explanation - that she supported Lalit Modi's request to travel on humanitarian grounds - as a "tearjerker".