Indian Express: New Delhi: Sunday, June 28, 2015.
The Union
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has refused to answer an RTI application on
the issue of facilitating UK travel documents to former IPL chief Lalit Modi,
saying some queries didn’t fall within the ambit of the legislation, while “no
information was available” with the Office of
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for the remaining ones.
Interestingly,
the RTI application included verbatim, the seven queries posed by former
Finance Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram at a news conference in
Chennai on July 18. The RTI application was filed online on the same day.
The MEA gave
a response within eight days. “Kindly note that the Office of External Affairs
Minister (EAM) has informed that the questions in Serial 1 to 3 of your RTI
does not seem to fall under the purview of the RTI Act, 2005,” said the MEA
reply dated June 26.
The three
questions were on why Sushma had not advised Lalit to apply for an Indian
travel document to go to Portugal, and not facilitate a UK travel document. It
also asked why she did not insist on the former IPL boss’ return to the country
as a condition for issuing a temporary Indian travel document?
Further, it
asked why the Centre was not releasing the letters exchanged between the then
Union Finance Minister( Chidambaram himself) and the then UK Chancellor of
Exchequer George Osborne.
In reply to
the last four questions, the MEA said, “No information is available”.
The MEA also
said it was transferring the RTI application to the Ministries of Finance and
Home Affairs, and its own Consular, Passport and Visa Division to give their
individual responses with regard to the four queries.
Again, the
tone of all the four questions was identical to that of Chidambaram, who had
asked for proof and file notings on the subject of the ministry not moving the
Supreme Court after the Delhi High Court revoked the cancellation of Lalit’s
passport. The questions also related to whether India had ever objected to the
grant of a long-term visa or residency permit to Lalit.
Incidentally,
while the EAM’s Office might not have said it didn’t have information on this
aspect, the previous UPA Government had told UK that providing any travel
documents to Lalit would be inimical to bilateral relations. This “veto” was
removed by Sushma when she spoke personally to UK High Commissioner to India
James Bevan in July last.
The last two
questions were on the Centre’s position on Lalit’s claim that his life was in
danger in India, as well as whether the NDA Government had taken any steps
after the issue of fresh passport to “enforce the summons issued by the ED”.
Express
contacted the RTI applicant, who readily admitted that the questions were
copied as he wanted to hear the government’s side of the story. The RTI
applicant did not want to be identified, stating that he was not an activist or
aligned to any party, but only a “citizen of India”.
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