by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Special report
Special report
The Modi government is struggling to invoke Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against ex-IPL commissioner Lalit Modi who is holed up in London after various cases were slapped against him five years ago.
Top officials in various agencies including Enforcement Directorate, CBI, DRI, Corporate Affairs, Narcotics and Mumbai Police are scanning tons of files to zero on a fool-proof criminal case against him to enable the government to invoke PMLA. Even the SIT was struggling yesterday through the day to zero on a criminal case against Lalit Modi so that he can be booked under PMLA.
The UPA government slapped 15 cases against Lalit Modi for Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999 which does not provide ED powers to arrest him. The ED could not issue an arrest warrant against Lalit Modi due to this very reason and failed to press the Interpol to issue a Red Corner Notice. What ED issued was a “Blue Corner Notice” which is no meaning in law. Even Finance Minister Arun Jaitley admitted that there is some confusion over "the shades of blue" whether it was a Light Blue Corner Notice.
Highly placed sources in the ED told this correspondent that the PMLA can be invoked only after a pre-dated criminal case is registered against a person under 28 Acts notified to invoke PMLA. Secondly, the PMLA case can be registered by the ED on its own if it has evidence to prove that the person laundered money which are “proceeds of crimes including drug, smuggling, terror” etc. The problem is that if the ED converts a FEMA case into the PMLA after five years, it must have some fresh impeccable evidence to prove criminality.
Another reason for successive governments going soft on Lalit Modi is that it will also bring officials and members of the BCCI & IPL governing bodies. The game of Cricket being an all party affair, nobody wanted to precipitate the issue after Lalit Modi quietly eloped in 2010. If the UPA didn’t convert the FEMA cases into PMLA and not registered a single criminal case against Lalit Modi for four years, the NDA too looked the other way.
Yet the pressure on the Modi government is so intense that a agencies have been told to register a criminal case against Lalit Modi under any of the 28 notified Acts to slap PMLA. Interestingly, the BCCI doesn't want to be a complainant in the matter. Therefore, the agencies are working overtime to find out a case against Modi not related to Cricket, IPL, Champions League etc. The government wants to file an appeal in the SC and for this a fresh case is considered necessary.
