Notice to Centre for revocation of Lalit Modi's plea

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the external affairs ministry on an appeal of sacked Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi challenging its earlier order on the revocation of his passport.

A division bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice VK Jain also issued notices to regional passport office (RPO) in Mumbai and chief passport officer (CPO) and sought their response by April 29.

Modi challenged the single bench order of Jan 16 that dismissed his plea challenging the revocation of his passport. He is facing an Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe into allegations of financial irregularities.

The regional passport office in Mumbai had revoked Modi's passport March 3, 2010, following the ED probe.

Dismissing Modi's appeal filed in April 2010, Joint Secretary Muktesh K Pardeshi had said: "The Enforcement Directorate, being an arm of the government and the designated agency to go into the question of violation of provision of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, is competent to make recommendation to the passport issuing authority to revoke the passport of an individual on the basis of investigation conducted by that agency."

The plea filed by Modi also sought quashing of the order of the passport authorities.

Modi is in Britain now.