NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday vacated its stay on proceedings initiated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh for alleged foreign exchange violations in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam.
Directing them to appear before the ED on April 24, a bench comprising Justice T S Thakur and Justice Kailash Gambhir also rejected the father-son duo's plea seeking copies of all the documents, related to the scam, available with the government.
The Court was hearing their petition challenging an order by a single judge bench which rejected their plea seeking copies of all the documents related to the scam.
The Court on August 6 last year had reserved its order on the petition after hearing both the sides.
The ED had in September 2006 issued show-cause notices to the former minister and his son along with four others for alleged violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act in the scam.
Natwar Singh and his son had contended that they should be given copies of even those documents which were not relied upon by the ED while issuing show-cause notices to them. They also wanted copies of those documents which have been brought by the special envoy of India to United States in connection with the scam.
The government, however, opposed the contention saying the law did not permit it to share with the petitioners documents which had not been relied upon by the ED.
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 copies of only 22 documents to Singh.
