Lalit Modi"s Email of Thanks Included Vinod Goenka, Accused in 2G Scam

New Delhi:  After he was granted emergency travel documents by UK officials, graft-tainted cricket boss Lalit Modi thanked a series of high-profile Indians in an email last year. Among them were top politician Sharad Pawar; Swaraj Kaushal, who is a lawyer married to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj; and controversial entrepreneur Vinod Goenka, who is on trial for corruption in the telecom or 2G scam, one of India’s largest financial swindles.

Mr Goenka, who was jailed for nearly a year, told NDTV today that he “is not that close to Mr Modi” and that he was not aware of Mr Modi’s note of thanks in August last year because his office reads all his emails. His son, Jay, is also listed in Mr Modi’s email sent in August last year.

Mr Pawar, a union minister in the previous Congress-led government and one of Indian cricket’s most powerful administrators, also told NDTV that he was unaware of Mr Modi’s thank you note.  

Mr Modi left India for London in 2010 while he was wanted in a range of corruption cases linked to his term as the flashy chief of the country’s richest sports league, the Indian Premier League. At a time when his passport had been revoked by India, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj urged UK officials to allow Mr Modi to travel to Portugal with his wife for her medical treatment.  

Mr Goenka, 55, has denied that his family has any business dealings with Mr Modi. He has also dismissed allegations that last year, he orchestrated a meeting in London between Mr Modi and Mumbai’s top cop Rakesh Maria, one of a series of examples of the cricket entrepreneur’s considerable clout and proximity to government officers and politicians.

Mr Goenka was imprisoned for seven months after he was accused of paying a nearly 200-crore kickback to get an out-of-turn mobile network license in 2008.