Passport office accepts deferment request of Modi's lawyers

Mumbai:

The Regional Passport Office (RPO) here on Tuesday accepted the deferment request of the lawyers representing Lalit Modi and postponed hearing on their plea to inspect documents, on the basis of which the RPO had sought to revoke former IPL Chairman's passport, to November 18.

"I received a letter from the RPO this afternoon conveying that my deferment plea has been accepted. I have been now summoned to passport office on November 18 at 4 pm," Modi's legal counsel Mehmood Abdi said.

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

In response to RPO's notice to cancel Modi's passport, his lawyers had requested the passport authorities to allow inspection of documents based on which they had sent a notice to Modi as to why his passport should not be cancelled.

To decide this plea, RPO had summoned Modi's lawyers for a hearing on Tuesday.

However, Abdi said it was difficult to attend the hearing at such a short notice as the attending counsel were pre-occupied with prior court commitments following which they had requested the RPO to postpone hearing till November 18.