[1]Twelve thousand pages stuffed into six cardboard cartons is suspended IPL chairman Lalit Modi’s response to the showcause notice served on him by the Board of Control for Cricket in India for alleged financial irregularities.
The reply was submitted through Mr Modi’s lawyers to the BCCI at its headquarters in Mumbai on Saturday.
Mr Modi’s lawyer, Mr Mehmood Abdi, told reporters he felt the reply would leave the cricket board with little choice but to reinstate Mr Modi as IPL chairman.
Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI’s chief administrative officer who officially received Mr Modi’s weighty reply, has a large task immediately in front of him — he said copies of the reply would be given to the concerned people.
“I have received the documents and all the concerned people will be given copies,” Mr Shetty said.
The matter now rests with the BCCI’s three-man disciplinary committee, comprising board president Shashank Manohar and vice-presidents Arun Jaitleya and Chirayu Amin, who are now to take a decision. The disciplinary committee is expected to meet in mid-June.
Mr Mehmood Abdi said in Mumbai the reply had “sufficiently and fully addressed” all the allegations against the suspended IPL chairman, who had been issued a showcause notice after the IPL governing council meeting of April 26.
Mr Abdi was confident the BCCI would reinstate Mr Modi as IPL chairman after going through the reply.
“We have given all clarification, nothing is left from our side,” Mr Abdi said, adding he felt that since “the BCCI president is a renowned lawyer I feel he won’t take much time to read our reply”.
“There is no scope for the BCCI to stick to their charges. I am 100 per cent confident that the BCCI president will be satisfied and drop all charges against Modi,” he said.
Mr Modi, in Monaco for the F1 Grand Prix, wrote on his Twitter page: “I will do a press conference at an appropriate time. It’s best to allow my colleagues time to go through my reply. We spent weeks putting it together.”
Links:
[1] http://103.241.136.51/top05162jpg-303