Mumbai passport office grants 10-day extension to Lalit Modi

Mumbai:

Former IPL chairman Lalit Modi has been granted a further 10 days time by the Mumbai Regional Passport Office (RPO) to reply to its notice as to why his passport should not be cancelled.

Modi, who is currently in Europe, is facing a probe by multiple government agencies for alleged financial irregularities in IPL.

Modi's lawyer, Mehmood Abdi, confirmed that RPO, Mumbai, has responded to their letters and reminders today and has given additional time of 10 days to his client to file his reply.

"The letter dated November 1 says if no reply is received within the stipulated period, necessary action under section 10(3)(C) will be initiated by this office," Abdi told PTI.

"We received this communication from the Passport office today, which sets out the time frame of 10 days from the date of issue of this letter, whereas the time frame usually starts from the service of the communication and not from the issuance of the correspondence," he said.

"The passport office has not supplied the documents requested for by Mr Lalit Modi. However, they have briefly reproduced contents of communication between Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Passport Office," he added.

Abdi said all documents relied upon by Passport Office for issuance of such notice, particularly communication dated October 4 and October 15 between ED and Passport Office, were essentially required for having a proper perspective of the issues involved and the jurisdiction and scope of the proposed action under the Passport Act.

Abdi said the response to this notice of Passport Office is under active consultation with the senior counsel and the reply would be filed within the stipulated period.

The Regional Passport Office (RPO) had issued show-cause notice on October 15 to Modi as to why his passport should not be cancelled under section 10(3)(c) of Passports Act, 1967.

In response to the letter written by Modi's lawyers to RPO seeking clarification and supply of documents on which the Passport officer has relied upon for issuing the show-cause notice, the Modi camp wrote a letter on October 26 and three others on October 28 besides a reminder again on October 29.

Since no response was received from the RPO, Modi's lawyers again wrote a detailed letter on 30th October, Abdi said.