FILE: Union minister Sushma Swaraj with former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi during a match in New Delhi in 2010 (Press Trust of India photo)
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had met former Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi at a hotel in London hotel in October 2014, sources told NDTV. She had met British parliamentarian Keith Vaz and Gopi Hinduja as well on the same trip.
The meetings took place at a hotel in Kensington on October 17 and 18, sources said.
Questions are also being raised about what Ms Swaraj told Mr Vaz -- whether she, for example, verbally indicated that the government would not appeal in the Superme Court against the decision to restore Lalit Modi's passport to him.
Mr Modi is under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the betting racket.
Later, in a mail to Lalit Modi, Mr Vaz had written, "We will need her (Sushma Swaraj) again". The e-mails of Mr Vaz, leaked to the British media, had triggered the row.
Mr Vaz was earlier accused of helping one of the Hinduja brothers get British citizenship.
Ms Swaraj had been in the eye of a storm for helping Lalit Modi get travel documents in UK - she claims it was a humanitarian gesture to help the former IPL chief be with his wife during her cancer surgery in Portugal.
The Congress has said there was no cancer surgery, the Modis were holidaying in Ibiza, and mocked Ms Swaraj, saying her explanation was a "tearjerker". Accusing the minister of misusing her authority, the party has demanded her resignation.
But the BJP and the government have backed her. Today Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, "Sushmaji acted in good faith. The entire party and government are united and behind her".