By IANS
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Monday halted a case initiated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against former external affairs minister and suspended Congress leader Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh for allegedly violating India’s currency laws in Iraq’s oil-for-food scam.
A bench headed by judge T.S. Thakur restrained the ED from proceeding against them, until further orders, for alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
The two-judge bench also reserved its order on a petition by the father and son seeking direction to the ED to supply them with all documents relating to the Iraqi scam during the regime of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
The ED had initiated proceedings against the Singhs and other accused for illegally receiving foreign exchange from the deal.
Singh and his son had approached the double bench challenging a single bench order refusing their plea to be shown all the documents relating to the scam before proceeding against them.
While rejecting the plea of Singh and his son, who is a legislator in Rajasthan, judge B.D. Ahmed had said in May that only those documents relied upon by the ED in its investigations would be supplied to them.
The ED has also named Jagat Singh’s business associate Andaleep Sehgal, his father Suman Sehgal, businessman Vijay Dhar, his son Vikas Dhar, and Youth Congress leader Jameel Zaidi in the Iraqi scam.
Another suspect, Aditya Khanna, had fled to Britain.
The ED was inquiring into the benefits allegedly accruing to the Indians in the scam as brought out by a UN report on the Iraqi scam. It was alleged that the suspects had earned commissions by selling petroleum products under the oil-for-food programme between 1996 and 2003.