After a seven-month long probe, its findings kept under wraps, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is all set to issue show-cause notices to former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, his son Jagat Singh and a clutch of their distant relatives and business associates in the Iraqi oil-for-food payoff scandal.

Three ED teams, led by Special Director S K Panda, are taking a final look at the bulky show-cause notices, likely to be issued in the next few days.

Asked about the imminent ED action against him, Natwar Singh told The Indian Express: “I’m not interested in what the ED is doing. If they send me a show-cause notice, my lawyers will reply to it.”

The ED, which completed its probe after sleuths visited Iraq, Jordan, US and UK to collect evidence, is learnt to have timed the dispatch of the show-cause notices closer to the end of the term of the Justice R S Pathak Commission on August 10.

Besides Natwar Singh and Jagat Singh, Andaleeb Sehgal and Vikas Dhar, co-partners of Hamdaan Exports, as well as NRI businessman Aditya Khanna are on the list of those being issued show-cause notices shortly under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

The notices are being sent after the ED scrutinized transactions of hundreds of bank accounts and traced ownership of dozens of companies in tax havens such as Channel Islands, Mauritius and the Isle of Man.

Sources said the ED show-cause notices will be followed by the initiation of a slew of measures against those who figure in the oil-for-food scandal.

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