‘Attempting to avoid extradition’: Vanuatu PM orders cancellation of Lalit Modi’s passport | India News

NEW DELHI: Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat on Monday directed the cancellation of the Vanuatu passport issued to fugitive businessman Lalit Modi after current worldwide media studies.
“I have instructed the citizenship commission to immediately begin proceedings to cancel Lalit Modi’s Vanuatu passport,” Napat stated.
“While all standard background checks, including Interpol screenings, conducted during his application showed no criminal convictions, I have been made aware in the past 24 hours that Interpol twice rejected Indian authorities’ requests to issue an alert notice on Lalit Modi due to lack of substantive judicial evidence. Any such alert would have triggered an automatic rejection of Lalit Modi’s citizenship application,” he added.

The Vanuatu PM specified that holding a Vanuatu passport is a privilege, not a proper, and that candidates will need to have legit causes for looking for citizenship. “None of those legitimate reasons include attempting to avoid extradition, which the recent facts brought to light clearly indicate was Lalit Modi’s intention,” he added.
Meanwhile, former IPL chairman has beforehand submitted an utility to give up his Indian passport on the Indian High Commission in London after buying citizenship of the Pacific island nation. The ministry of exterior affairs said that his request can be reviewed beneath “extant rules and procedures.”
“We are also given to understand that Lalit Modi has acquired the citizenship of Vanuatu. We continue to pursue the case against him as required under law,” an MEA spokesperson had stated earlier.
India has repeatedly sought help from the UK in extraditing Lalit Modi, who has been going through authorized proceedings associated to monetary irregularities.