New Delhi: The fight between the Indian cricket board and IPL chief Lalit Modi is now being fought through leaked e-mails, allegations and counter-allegations.
BCCI president Shashank Manohar on Thursday accused Modi of violating confidentiality rules by revealing the share-holding details of IPL teams. “He (Modi) has violated the confidentiality clause by putting out share holding details on Twitter. The (IPL) Governing Council will meet on the 26th of April to decide on this issue,” he said.
The investigation and tax raids on owners of three IPL team owners follow an ugly spat between Modi and Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor over the involvement of the Congress MP’s friend Sunanda Pushkar in the Kochi franchise. Pushkar gave up her sweat equity in the franchise and Tharoor quit the government, triggering an unprecedented investigation into any Indian sporting body.
Modi hit back at his detractors on Wednesday, claiming he was ready to disclose all franchisee holdings to IPL Governing Council members in emails a week ago but was stopped by Manohar and senior BCCI official Arun Jaitley. CNN-IBN has got access to the e-mails Modi intended to send to the members.
Modi has questioned the legality of the IPL governing council meet called on April 26 and also objected to board secretary N Srinivasan's constitutional right to call the meeting.
He asked Manohar to postpone the meeting to May 1 and questioned Srinivasan's stake in the Chennai Super Kings team. Srinivasan is the vice-chairman and managing director of India Cements, which owns Chennai Super Kings.
But Manohar rejected Modi's contention that the governing council meeting was illegal and made it clear that it would go ahead with the meeting as per schedule.
"It is his view point, everybody is entitled to their viewpoint," Manohar said.
The BCCI also disagreed with Modi's stand that secretary N Srinivasan could not convene the governing council meeting merely because he is part of an IPL franchise.
"It is not a question of owner. He (Srinivasan) is not calling the meeting as an owner of the team and in the board constitution, the secretary is the convenor of all meetings," Manohar said.
"Whether there is conflict of interest is not an issue because Mr Srinivasan, when this issue had cropped up, had sought the permission of Mr Sharad Pawar, who was the president of the board then.
"Mr Pawar had granted him permission to bid and it is not Mr Srinivasan who is bidding, it was India cement which is bidding and after his bid was accepted it was confirmed by the general body," he added.
Monahar also said while BCCI was aware of Srinivasan's stakes, but it was unaware that Modi's relatives and friends had stakes in the franchise and deals.
"Mr Srinivasan was a declared bidder. If Modi and his relatives had a share in any of the franchises, he ought to have declared it at the meeting. I was not a member of Governing Council then. He ought to have told everybody," he said.
(With inputs from PTI and IANS )
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