New Delhi:
A massive row over Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj helping Lalit Modi, the controversial former chief of the Indian Premier League, obtain British travel documents, threatened to escalate on Tuesday as it emerged that a top foreign ministry official was apparently kept in the dark.
Sujatha Singh, who was foreign secretary at the time Lalit Modi got emergency travel documents in July last year, has indicated to NDTV that she was not consulted. "I have no idea about this case. I don't recall a single paper related to this," said Ms Singh, who was asked to quit in January this year, five months before her tenure was to end.
Top sources have told NDTV that there is no file in the foreign ministry on Sushma Swaraj's communication to the UK for travel documents for Lalit Modi. Ms Swaraj, say sources, appeared to have communicated with British officials "verbally, informally."
The Congress has alleged that the foreign minister went out of her way to facilitate Lalit Modi, under investigation by the Enforcement Directorate for corruption linked to the multi-billion dollar cricket league.
Lalit Modi's passport was revoked by the previous UPA government in 2010. In August last year, weeks after the former IPL chairman received travel papers in Britain, the Delhi High Court restored his passport. The opposition has questioned why the government never appealed against that court order despite a blue corner notice against Lalit Modi, which means that his whereabouts have to be known to the government and investigators at all times.
The foreign ministry has not responded to repeated queries by NDTV on whether there was an official paper trail in the Lalit Modi case.
The row exploded on Sunday after the British media reported that Sushma Swaraj had asked UK authorities to examine Lalit Modi's request. Ms Swaraj has asserted in tweets that she helped Lalit Modi on "humanitarian grounds" so that he could be with his wife during her cancer surgery in Portugal. The Congress today called her reason a "tearjerker."
"After reaching that place Portugal on 5th August 2014, on 8th August and 8th onwards Mr Lalit Modi along with his wife and another family member they were holidaying in a place called Ibiza," said Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma.