Despite the calls for the Prime Minister to sack her, Sushma Swaraj remains the External Affairs Minister as she continues to face flak for allegedly aiding former IPL chief Lalit Modi get travel documents to travel outside UK.

Despite the calls for the Prime Minister to sack her, Sushma Swaraj remains the External Affairs Minister as she continues to face flak for allegedly aiding former IPL chief Lalit Modi get travel documents to travel outside UK.

The BJP and Swaraj's defence has hinged on the fact that all she did was discharge her duties and attempt to act in a humanitarian manner, Lalit Modi's lawyer on Monday also lauded the minister saying that his client had always been in compliance with British laws.

"No proceedings in any court of law has declared him an offender or a fugitive. He is staying in London with the full knowledge of and complying with British laws," Mehmood M Abdi said.

Abdi said the Interpol secretariat had clarified that there was no "blue notice" against Modi.

Speaking on the Buck Stops Here on NDTV, former diplomat KC Singh also agreed with the fact that many Indian investigating agencies used the revoking of the passport as a means to harass a person accused in a case.

However, he was very clear about one thing. What Swaraj did was wrong.

"Even if it was (done for) Mother Teresa it wasn't right," Singh said.

He pointed out that the minister should have ideally issued a notice to the Enforcement Directorate, understood the status of the notice issued against Modi years earlier and whether they intended to take action. At no point so far has the government stated that Swaraj contacted the ministry of finance, under which the enforcement directorate operates, or Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

"The route to go was to tell the agency that you are being harsh," Singh said.

Singh said a temporary passport could have been issued in case the Enforcement Directorate said it had no objection.

"To me, this looks it make be contempt of the judge who issued a summon," Singh said. The former diplomat said that the incident smacked of "multiple misdemeanours" and "conflicts of interest".

He also dismissed the argument that Swaraj did enjoy some discretionary powers when it came to such issues.

"There is no discretion to go outside your system and circumvent an existing notice," Singh said.

Singh's argument finds further basis in a statement from the nation's former top diplomat. Former foreign secretary Sujatha Singh, who was foreign secretary when the incident took place, told the Indian Express that she hadn't been consulted on the matter at all.

"I knew nothing about this...Zero," she was quoted as saying in the paper.

A DNA report also points out that officials in the Ministry of External Affairs still aren't clear about whether the 2012 notice to Modi stands and whether the Indian government was seeking to repatriate the former IPL chief. The officials said that as per protocol Swaraj should have told Modi to approach the Indian high commission and country-specific travel documents could have been issued.

Instead as Swaraj pointed out in her tweet, she instead contacted the British High Commissioner in Delhi to indicate that the issuing of documents to Modi wouldn't affect India-UK ties.

As Firstpost's G Pramod Kumar pointed out, while Swaraj's actions may not fit in the popular definition of corruption, it doesn't escape it either:

"Corruption is not just about money and defies simple definition. In fact, because of this complexity, the UN convention against corruption in 2002 even chose not to define it and listed examples that make corrupt practices. Favouritism, nepotism and clientelism; abuse of discretionary powers; exploiting conflict of interests; and political contributions are among the practices that the UN has listed as corruption."

But despite all this Swaraj may be safe for now, with sources reportedly telling the Telegraph that the Prime Minister had no intention of letting what many say in his best minister leave just yet.

Having weathered similar storms as Gujarat chief minister, with his then deputy Amit Shah, the Prime Minister is keen to not 'buckle' under political pressure.

However, the Prime Minister has taken care to dissociate himself completely from her decision.

"The PMO was not in the know. Had Sushmaji spoken to the Prime Minister, he would have stopped her," one of the sources said.

For now Swaraj's position may be safe. But despite a strong defence put up by the foreign minister and her party, the discretionary use of her powers means that the cloud over her won't dissipate any time soon.