Green signal to ED for proceeding against Natwar, Jagat : HC

Green signal to ED for proceeding against Natwar, Jagat : HC New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) The Delhi High Court today gave a green signal to the Enforcement Directorate to proceed against former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh for alleged foreign exchange violations in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam, holding that the procedure followed by the ED was right. "The procedure followed by the adjudicating authority (ED) did not suffer any infirmity to call for our interference," a bench comprising Justice T S Thakur and Justice Kailash Gambhir said while dismissing the father-son duo's petitions. Vacating the stay imposed by it against ED's proceedings against Natwar and his son, the Court directed them to appear before the ED on April 24 to defend themselves in alleged FEMA violation cases. The Court passed the judgement on petitions filed by them challenging ED's proceeding against them as copies of all the documents related to the scam were not provided to them. The suspended senior Congress leader and his son approached the court when the ED refused to provide all the 83 documents brought by India's special envoy Virender Dayal from the US on the oil-for-food scam. The government had only supplied 22 documents to Singh which were relied upon to proceed against them in FEMA violation case. Justifying the governments decision, the Bench said, "The adjudicating authority was correct in declining its request for supply of documents not relied upon." The Bench also turned down their plea that they should be given personal hearing before initiating any procedure against them under the FEMA Act and said their demands were "unsupported by law". PTI

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