Thaindian News

By Veturi Srivatsa
New Delhi, May 11 (IANS) Indian cricket board secretary N. Srinivasan has expressed his inability to provide the official documents that Lalit Modi, suspended chairman of the Indian Premier League (IPL), has sought to buttress his replies to the charge sheet served on him, saying many of the complaints against him were oral and some were confidential.

All that Srinivasan was willing to do is to send him a copy of the agreement between Nimbus and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which is needed to address the objections raised by the telecasting rights holder over detaching Internet rights from the telecast rights, two letters and the shareholding pattern of an IPL franchisee.

As for the other documents, he said some of the complaints on which the charge sheet was based are “oral submissions” and some others were “privileged or confidential”

Modi, who was given five more days till May 15 to submit his reply to the charge sheet had, in his Sunday e-mail to Srinivasan, listed 10 specific charges levelled against him and sought crucial documents from the Board to buttress his response.

Srinivasan Monday replied that some of the charges stemmed from “oral complaints” the Board chief received from his colleagues, renowned players and public figures and some others were based on media reports that tarnished the image of the game and the Board. Some other names, he said, cannot be disclosed because the communications were “confidential and privileged.”

Explaining why the Board cannot provide Modi with the documents, Srinivasan stated: “These communications received by the BCCI chief (Shashank Manohar) from senior office-bearers, committee members and others expressing their concern about tarnishing the image of the BCCI and the game of cricket were all oral communications. I am sure you would have been concerned at the adverse image suffered by BCCI and the game of cricket on the account of media reports which have appeared at the time of the issuance of the show cause notice.”

While a couple of Board members were astonished that the secretary chose to make light of a serious charge sheet by stating it was based on oral conversations, another wondered how the Board chief could rely on hearsay to issue a show cause notice.

“It is a serious lapse on the part of the Board chief to base the charge sheet on gossip and media reports and to state that some information is privileged and confidential as if it is a state secret that is going to affect India’s integrity or security,” a Board member told IANS, not wanting to be named.

Srinivasan invoked the confidentiality clause while rejecting Modi’s demand to know the names of the people or the “subtle messages” he was supposed to have sent to corporate entities that they were unwelcome to bid.

“Such messages were given to him and since the communications were privileged and confidential, the name of the person is withheld,” Srinivasan maintained.

As for the Kochi contract being signed under a directive of the BCCI president, Srinivasan said Manohar telephonically directed principal IPL staffers to execute the agreement and so there cannot be any record of it.

While a Board official accused Modi of nitpicking by combing minor details, another held the Board chief responsible if anything goes wrong with the Kochi franchise as he had directed the IPL commissioner to initial the contract without verifying the bona fides of the stakeholders.

Modi, according to his lawyers, submitted the documents to the Board’s Chief Administrative Officer Ratnakar Shetty in two instalments, the second one Monday.

The Board’s main charges against Modi are related to the initial bids for the Rajasthan and Punjab team franchises and alleged bid rigging for two new franchises that will start next year. He also faces probes into the sale of broadcasting and Internet rights.

Modi had questioned the Board basing the charges on unsubstantiated allegations, complaints and innuendos like the Kochi agreement being signed only after a directive from the Board chief, some of the deals being finalised without the knowledge of the IPL Governing Council and his holding proxy stakes in three IPL franchises.

The suspended IPL chief also referred to a wide-ranging charge that the BCCI chief had been receiving messages and requests from senior office bearers, highly reputed public figures and renowned players expressing their anguish over the loss of image of the Board and the game and wanted proof of it.

The IPL crisis was triggered as Modi revealed that a woman friend of Shashi Tharoor, then a junior minister in the Manmohan Singh government, had invested in a consortium which is part of the Kochi franchise.

The revelation led to Tharoor’s resignation and forced the government’s tax enforcement agencies to probe the teams, sponsors, broadcasters and event managers connected with the IPL.

(Veturi Srivatsa can be contacted at v.srivatsa@ians.in)