FILE: Former IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi (Agence France-Presse photo)
Tainted cricket mogul Lalit Modi, who left India in 2010 amid a retinue of corruption charges, has been given three weeks to appear in Mumbai for interrogation in a money-laundering case that accuses him of accepting a kickback of nearly Rs 125 crore in exchange for awarding the broadcast rights of the Indian Premier League, which he founded in 2008.
Sources say the summons to Mr Modi from the Enforcement Directorate were issued yesterday in London, where the cricket tycoon has been living since he left India.
Because the order to appear in India is based on a criminal case, sources say that if Mr Modi does not comply, the Enforcement Directorate's options would include getting a non-bailable warrant for his arrest or asking for a red-corner notice used by the government of a country to seek international assistance in the arrest of a fugitive.
Since last month, the government has been under attack from the opposition over revelations that a pair of its top leaders, Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje, spoke to UK immigration officials to help Mr Modi.
In a tweet last night, Mr Modi said,
Summons has also been sent to Lalit Modi's solicitor in Mumbai, who accepted and acknowledged it on July 3, sources said. But yesterday, the solicitors returned it, saying they were not authorised to receive summons.
"I have not received any such summons. The ED has Mr Modi's address in the UK. They are required to serve him as per the procedure prescribed in law," Mr Modi's legal advisor Mehmood M Abdi said.
Sources said if Mr Modi does not respond to summons, the ED can move court for a non-bailable warrant against him.
Mr Modi has so far refused to return home citing death threats from the underworld. His offer to appear via videoconference was accepted as a fair one last year by the Delhi High Court when it restored his Indian passport, declaring that the government had wrongly revoked it.
The Enforcement Directorate says it needs to question Mr Modi urgently about an alleged kickback of nearly Rs 125 crore paid after he reportedly manipulated the process of assigning the broadcast rights of the IPL. The case against him was filed by N Srinivasan, the former chief of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, who testified last week with the Enforcement Directorate in Mumbai.