Puducherry:
The Lt Governor of Puducherry Iqbal Singh was questioned on Wednesday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials over his alleged links to controversial businessman Hasan Ali, who was arrested last month for tax evasion and money laundering.
The ED officials questioned Mr Iqbal Singh at the Raj Niwas in Puducherry.
On Tuesday morning, the Prime Minister's Office sanctioned the interrogation of Iqbal Singh.
Mr Ali has been accused of stashing upto 8 billion dollars' worth of black money in foreign bank accounts. He is also being investigated for links to international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
In 1997, Mr Singh was a Rajya Sabha MP from the Congress party when he helped expedite a passport application for Mr Ali. In a letter of explanation sent to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram last week, Mr Singh said that he asked for the passport to be granted on humanitarian grounds because he had been told that Mr Ali needed to travel abroad urgently to visit his brother, who was sick.
Mr Singh wrote that he did not know Mr Hasan personally, but intervened at the request of Amalendu Pandey, a Congress leader from Bihar.