Lalit Modi row: Spy agency probe may have revealed the correspondence

The 'leaked correspondence' which revealed how British parliamentarian Keith Vaz cited foreign affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to grant British travel papers to ex-Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi may well be part of an email trail led by a spy agency allegedly hired by ex-BCCI chief N Srinivasan to spy on members of the board.

According to sources, the London-based spy agency allegedly hired by Srinivasan was keeping close tabs on other members of the BCCI as well as Lalit Modi who had been living in the UK after he was accused by the board of being involved in financial irregularities.

The spy agency was apparently paid a sum of Rs 14 crore to tap phones and hack emails of members of the board and that of Modi. The correspondence between Modi and Vaz, according to sources, formed an important piece of their investigation as it involved the name not only a British parliamentarian but also of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj who is considered one of the senior-most leaders of the BJP.

The correspondence revealed by a London-based newspaper shows the extent to which Vaz intervened on behalf of Modi with Sarah Rapson, the head of UK visas and immigration and also cited the foreign affair minister who was interested in expediting the case of Modi.

In another development, Aditya Verma, the secretary of Cricket Associattion of Bihar, the petitioner in the IPL case, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him for a CBI probe to examine the payment of Rs 14 crore rupees towards the London based spy agency. The payment was allegedly made possible by the then BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel.

Verma also mentioned the seriousness of the issue of possible hacking emails of a British Politician and called it a matter of the country's security.

UK rules out probe

London: Indian-origin Labour MP Keith Vaz, who is embroiled in a major row involving external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj over helping scam-tainted former IPL chief Lalit Modi to obtain British travel documents, will not be probed in Britain for a complaint in this regard. Kathryn Hudson, Britain's Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, has decided not to investigate the complaint against Vaz that he helped Modi get travel documents to go to Portugal, purportedly for his wife's cancer treatment in June last year.

"The commissioner received a complaint (against Keith Vaz) last week, but has decided not to investigate into it," a spokeswoman for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said.