 The BCCI members have all voted in favour of accepting the charges that were levied
against Lalit Modi, the suspended chairman of the IPL. This was done at
the special general body meeting in Mumbai. This means that the charges will now
be sent across to the disciplinary committee consisting of the three members and
they will now need to probe the case against the beleaguered chairman.
The trio consisting of Arun Jaitley, Chirayu Amin and Jyotiroa Scindia
will now decide on whether or not civil or criminal charges should be filed
against Modi. They have a deadline of October 26 to finish off everything and
decide on the future course of action.
In the meeting, Shashank Manohar said that the members had decided that the
president should be allowed to take legal action against Modi for causing a
huge loss to the cricket board. It has been estimated that around Rs.1000 crores
have been lost.
Manohar said, "Whether it is a civil or criminal matter, we can only decide
after we have probed the legality of the issue."
However, this did not stop the IPL's suspended chairman's lawyer, Mehmood Abdi
to slam the move. He said that the charges against Modi were absolutely absurd
and should not be levied.
Abdi said that while the BCCI had decided to ratify the charges against Modi
and refer them to the disciplinary committee, they have also levied criminal
charges against Modi. This meant, according to Abdi, that the board had already
formed an opinion about the same.
The name of Union Minister of State and Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association
president Jyotiraditya Scindia was suggested by Ranbir Singh Mahendra,
as the replacement for Shashank Manohar, who had been asked to recuse himself
from the proceedings by Modi.
Jyotiraditya is the son of the late Madhavrao Scindia, who was the BCCI
president from 1990 to 1993. Madhavrao was also a politician and hugely popular
in Madhya Pradesh.
Earlier, N Srinivasan had rejected Modi's replies to the show cause notices,
and the necessary 3/4th majority that was required was got from the board, when
all the members were unanimous in their decision to refer the case to the disciplinary
committee.
What was surprising was that even the four of the pro-Modi state associations,
Mumbai Cricket Association, the CCI, the Punjab Cricket Association and the
JK Cricket Association, refused to vote in his favour and that meant that he
was left fighting a lone battle.
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