HC dismisses Natwar's plea seeking documents from ED

[ganpat1956]

<SMALL>NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed the petitions of former external affairs Minister Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh seeking direction to the Enforcement Directorate to provide them all documents relating to Iraq's oil-for-food scam.

Justice B D Ahmed, while rejecting the contention of the duo said, the Supreme Court judgments on this issue clearly say that only those documents, which have been relied upon by the government for taking action against the accused, would be supplied to them.

"In the light of the Supreme Court judgments, I cannot hold otherwise," Justice Ahmed said, adding, "Let's hope that law further develops on the issue". The duo had approached the court when the government body had refused to provide all documents collected by it in the oil-for-food scam. The former External Affairs Minister contended that authorities had not provided them those documents, which the government had not relied upon while initiating the inquiry against him and his son.

He was referring to the documents brought by India's special envoy Virender Dayal from the United States. The two further contended that ED did not rely on the Pathak inquiry authority report, which said that Natwar Singh did not derive any contractual benefit from the scam.</SMALL>
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<SMALL>HC dismisses Natwar's plea seeking documents from ED - Newindpress.com&</SMALL>
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<SMALL>[Now the former minister and his son may take recourse to the common man's law, The RTI Act, to get those documents-Ganpat]</SMALL>