Lalit Modi responds to BCCI's first show cause notice

Lalit Modi

Suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) Chairman Lalit Modi today submitted his response to the first show cause notice served to him by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for alleged financial and other irregularities in the conduct of the high-profile T-20 tournament.

Mr Modi's reply, running into some 12,000 pages, including copies of documents, was delivered at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai on his behalf by his lawyer Mohammad Abdi. Mr Modi himself was said to be in Europe.

Mr Abdi told waiting journalists that the reply addressed all the allegations made by the BCCI against Mr Modi, including five primary charges. He said the reply was prepared by a team of senior lawyers.

According to him, the reply would leave the BCCI with no other option but to withdraw all the charges against him and reinstate him immediately.

BCCI Chief Administrative Officer Ratnakar Shetty received the papers on behalf of the Board. He said copies of the documents would now be made available to the concerned people in the Board.

The BCCI had levelled a total of 22 charges against Mr Modi. The primary charges included one that he received kickbacks of $ 80 million for the renegotiated television rights fo the league and another that he had undisclosed stakes in three of the IPL teams.

Mr Abdi said the BCCI had erred in suspending Mr Modi on the basis of hearsay and oral complaints with no evidence to back the charges.

"We are 1000 per cent confident that the Board will be satisfied with our reply and that Mr Modi will be reinstated," he said.

Mr Abdi said the reply included the minutes of all the meetings of the IPL Governing Council since 2007.

The BCCI had suspended Mr Modi on the night of April 25, minutes after the final of the IPL T-20 tournament ended and served him with a 34-page chargeshet.

The current controversy surrounding IPL and the BCCI started on April 11, when Mr Modi had tweeted details of the shareholding in Rendezvous Sports World, which had led the consortium that won the franchise for the IPL Kochi team recently. The tweets said one of those who had got "sweat equity" from Rendezvous was Ms Sunanda Pushkar, who is a close friend of then Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor.

Dr Tharoor could not shake off the allegations that he had somehow misused his position to get Ms Pushkar free equity, and that she was acting as a proxy for him. Dr Tharoor had always maintained that he had acted a mentor for the team and had no financial involvement with it in any way. The Opposition mounted an offensive in Parliament, and Dr Tharoor had to ultimately resign from office.

But the controversy had only begun, with the focus then shifting to Mr Modi, the investments in IPL teams by his relatives and the contracts awarded to various firms. Even as the clamour for his removal grew on the one side, several of the team owners came out in his support and saying that he should be given a chance to answer all the charges against him.

In the meantime, the controversy led to nationwide search operations by the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate and other agencies at the offices of some of the teams as well as other companies.

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel also found themselves embroiled in the controversy.

Questions have also been raised about Mr Srinivasan who apart from being the Secretary of the BCCI, is also the Managing Director and vice-chairman of India Cements, which owns one of the teams, Chennai Super Kings, which incidentally won the finals against the Mumbai Indians this year.

On May 21, the BCCI sent Mr Modi another show cause notice about the allegations that he tried to provoke English counties to revolt against the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and join a new T-20 league.

NNN