Former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi was on Tuesday elected president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, setting the stage for yet another round of legal tussle between him and BCCI, which had threatened to ban RCA in anticipation of this result.
The election was conducted in December 2013 but the results were sealed following a Supreme Court directive. After much deliberation, the result was finally announced by a court-appointed observer in Jaipur on Tuesday.
As expected Modi won by a landslide margin, polling in 24 out of 33 votes, while his opponent Rampal Sharma earned just five.
Among other office-bearers, Somendra Tiwari was elected as the new secretary, while Pawan Goyal won the treasurer’s post. Mehmood M Abdi, counsel of Modi, has been elected as the deputy president of the RCA.
Modi was slapped with a life ban by the BCCI on September 25, 2013, year after its disciplinary committee found him guilty on eight charges of “indiscipline and misconduct”.
After Modi entered the fray in the RCA elections, BCCI had challenged the Rajasthan Sports Act, 2005, which allowed the former IPL chief to contest the presidential polls despite being banned for life by the Board.
Challenging the election, the BCCI pleaded that Modi should not have been allowed to contest and the election be quashed.
But the Supreme Court, in April, cleared the decks for the declaration of RCA’s election results.
Brushing aside the BCCI’s objection, a bench headed by Justice A.R. Dave directed the registry to send the results, in a sealed envelope by its appointed observer Justice (retd) N.M. Kasliwal.
The court, however, has said that anyone aggrieved of the outcome can challenge it before an appropriate authority.
