Lalit Modi’s defence against BCCI show cause notice got a boost on Thursday with the cricket board assuring the suspended IPL Commissioner that only documentary proofs provided on charges levelled against him would be used in the proceedings.
“BCCI is in receipt of your e-mail of 12th May, 2010. Your attention is drawn to Clause 32 (iv) of the Memorandum and the Rules and Regulations of the BCCI. Under the said Rules, the Secretary, in consultation with the BCCI President, will issue a notice for the alleged misconduct.
“Such a notice has been issued to you. The BCCI is awaiting your reply on or before 15th May, 2010,” BCCI secretary N. Srinivasan has communicated to Mr. Modi in an e-mail.
“The notice is issued on basis of the material set out in the notice and the documents which have been supplied to you.
If your reply is found unsatisfactory, the matter is then referred to the Disciplinary Committee who shall, after giving you a further opportunity, decide the whole issue,” the e-mail said.
“All facts and documents, on which the notice has been issued, have been supplied to you. You may send your reply on the basis of the facts and documents which have been referred to,” he further said in the e-mail, a copy of which is available with PTI.
“If an inquiry by the Disciplinary Committee is considered necessary and any further documents/materials, if any, are relied upon, or become available to the inquiry, the same shall also be supplied to you,” the BCCI secretary has concluded.
Mr. Modi, in his e-mailed reply, has thanked Mr. Srinivasan “for confirming that the material already sent is the only material that you will be relying against me and that you don’t rely on any further documents or materials as far as show cause notice is concerned.”
Mr. Modi’s legal advisor Mehmood S Abdi told PTI that the materials supplied to the suspended commissioner on May 11 were of “routine nature.”
“The process of filing Mr. Modi’s reply to the show cause notice is on,” he declared.
BCCI extended the deadline to file the reply by five days on the suspended IPL chief’s request and the new deadline is May 15.
In an earlier e-mail on Thursday, Mr. Modi had questioned the authenticity of the sources used by the BCCI to press charges against him and said the board’s reluctance to reveal the identity of the alleged source is illegal and unjustified.
In a letter to the BCCI on Wednes, Mr. Modi had raised apprehensions about the reliable sources and said it was nothing more than fiction. He also asked the board to remove this oral communication from the proceedings.
Mr. Modi had received four documentary ‘proofs’ of his alleged wrongdoings out of the 10 references made in the show cause notice by the BCCI, which said it could not offer evidences for the rest since those were of verbal nature.
The four documents handed over by the BCCI to Modi on May 11 included:
1. Copy of Statutory register of Jaipur IPL Cricket Private Limited and copy of Register of Shareholders as on July 15, 2009 of EM Sporting Holdings Ltd.
2. Copy of Media Rights Agreement, that is audiovisual rights agreement signed by February 28, 2008 between Nimbus and BCCI, including Addendum Agreement dated March 29 and June 2, 2007 and February 2, 2008.
3. Copy of e-mail dated December 6, 2007 from Yannick Colaco, Executive Vice President of Nimbus Sports.
4. Copies of two letters dated October 9 and 10, 2008 from Colaco.
BCCI secretary N Srinivasan in an e-mail to Mr. Modi said that other references made in the show cause notice for which he wanted documentary support were oral transactions or verbal communications and there is no documentary proof for those.
Mr. Modi had asked for documents from the BCCI for mounting his defence against the first show cause notice that has charged him with financial irregularities and bid rigging in the Indian Premier League.
