Make letters public, says P Chidambaram

Chennai: Former finance minister P. Chidambaram spoke against Lalit Modi after he accused the former minister of launching a witch hunt.
Mr Chidambaram asked the government about the steps it has taken so far to bring Lalit Modi back.

The ED booked cases against Mr Modi in 2010 and his passport was cancelled in 2011. “I also want to know when the division bench of the High Court set aside the cancellation of Mr Lalit Modi’s passport, who took the decision not to file an appeal in the Supreme Court? Was the ED, at whose instance the passport had been cancelled, consulted in the matter?

Also, who took the decision to issue a fresh passport to Mr Lalit Modi”, Mr Chidambaram asked, while demanding that the government makes public the notings on the file.

Rubbishing the allegations leveled by Mr Lalit Modi against the previous UPA government saying he was hounded and made a victim of ‘political vendetta”, the former minister said the charges were “laughable”.

He said the answer to the charges can be found in the letters exchanged between him and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr George Osborne, in which he urged sending Lalit Modi back to India as he was facing investigations here with his passport revoked and has no right to live in UK.

“Despite repeated appeals, why is the government not making the letters public? In a way, Mr Arun Jaitley, the finance minister, has repelled the charges by confirming that the ED was indeed investigating 16 cases against Mr Lalit Modi and had issued show cause notices to him in 15 of those 16 cases”, Mr Chidambaram asserted.

“If Ms Sushma Swaraj was inclined to facilitate Mr Modi’s travel to Portugal on humanitarian grounds, why did she not advise him to apply to the Indian High Commission in London for a temporary travel document to enable him to visit Portugal alone for a limited period?” he asked.