Lalit Modi's 14-page letter to the BCCI

                     
Lalit Kumar Modi
Chairman & Commissioner
(Suspended)NIRLON HOUSE
DR. ANNIE BESANT ROAD   
WORLI, MUMBAI-400030
PHONE: 91-­?022-­?66637373
FAX: 91-­?022-­?24932260   
 
                                                                                     

25,May 2010

 
   
 
                                                                                                                 
TO,
Mr. SHASHANK MANOHAR,
PRESIDENT,
BOARD FOR CONTROL OF CRICKET IN INDIA
MUMBAI.

APPLICATION REQUESTING FOR THE FOLLOWING: -

1) HON. PRESIDENT BCCI MAY CONSIDER EXCLUDING / RECUSING HIMSELF AND/OR BEING ASSOCIATED WITH THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS RELATING TO THE SHOW CAUSE NOTICE DATED NIL RECIEVED ON 26TH APRIL 2010

2) EXCLUSION OF THE HONOURARY SECRETARY, Mr. N. SRINIVASAN FROM ANY FURTHER PROCEEDINGS IN THE COMPLAINT AND SHOWCAUSE NOTICE DATED NIL RECEIVED ON 26TH APRIL, 2010

3) APPOINTMENT OF A BODY COMPRISING OF INDEPENDENT PERSONS FOR ADJUDICATING THE SHOW CAUSE NOTICE AS WELL AS DETERMINING WHETHER THE CAUSE SHOWN BY ME IS SUFFICIENT OR NOT IN TERMS OF ARTICLE 32 (IV) OF THE BCCI RULES: -

IT IS STATED AS HEREUNDER: -
1) That, at the outset, I wish to place on record the fact that the reputation of an institution and its credibility is more important than any individual. The present proceedings although have caused incalculable and irreparable damage to my reputation and credibility as an Administrator, but at the same time, it has put a question mark on the manner in which the Board has chosen to conduct these proceedings. I am constrained to prefer the present application so as to bring a degree of fair play in the present proceedings and also so that the principles of natural justice are complied with in letter and spirit.

2) Though the present controversy is a matter of great personal anguish for me, however, my primary concern has, and would always be, to protect the credibility of the Board and safeguard the interest of the game of cricket. I am sure that the Hon. President, being an eminent lawyer of great reputation, would appreciate that, although it is me who is on trial, however, in a manner of speaking it is the Board itself, which is on trial. By the instant application I do not seek any voice of support for me but only intend to put in place safeguards to ensure that during the course of all the proceedings my voice should not be suppressed and my endeavor to bring out true and correct facts before the members of the Board should not be suffocated.

3) That your good self has been the part of the Governing Council of IPL and hence, been a party and privy to all the decisions and actions taken by the Governing Council, which have been ratified by the General Body of the Board of which you are the current head. Hence, all the decisions have not only been taken with your concurrence but also have been approved twice over by you as has been by others on the GC.

4) That I would now deal with my requests as enumerated herein above which may be considered without bias and prejudice. At the very outset I state, that the same are not motivated by any personal grudge but with the sole intention that
whatever is the outcome of the present proceedings, the process leading to such decision should be fair and proper, thereby rendering the same unimpeachable.

a) THE HON. PRESIDENT BCCI MAY CONSIDER EXCLUDING/RECUSING HIMSELF FROM BEING ASSOCIATED WITH THE DECISION MAKING
PROCESS RELATING TO THE AFORESAID SHOW CAUSE NOTICE DATED NILRECIEVEDON 26TH APRIL 2010

1) That I am constrained to prefer the present application, for your kind consideration that you may consider recusing yourself from participating any further in the proceedings relating to complaint and show cause dated nil as your participation in the proceedings would tantamount to being a judge, witness and a potential co-notice in these
very proceedings. It may be pertinent to note that the allegations made in the show cause are contrary to the minutes as recorded and approved by all the members of the Governing Council and ratified by the General Body of the Board.

2) You sirs are fully aware of the various matters, and have full personal knowledge of whatever transpired. Thus it should be obvious that your participation in the matter is going to create an anomalous situation. Some of those matters are set out below, for your consideration

A) That you are party to each and every decision taken by the Governing Council of the IPL of which you are the member and also party to it's ratification by the General Body which is headed by your good self. You have approved all the minutes of the meetings of the Governing Council of IPL and also ratified the same in the Annual General Body Meetings of the Board and signed all the minutes of the same along-with the Honorary Secretary.

B) The Governing Council of IPL after due consultation amongst itself and only after it's satisfaction approved the bid of successful tenderers including that of M/s Emerging Media. The documents filed by M/s Emerging Media along-with bid included a proposed corporate structure, which was accepted by all members of the Governing Council including you. The said bidder had disclosed (i) that the franchisee would be an entity other than the bidder; (ii) the franchisee would be an Indian company; (iii) the franchisee (Indian company) would be a 100% subsidiary of a Mauritius Holding Company; and
(iv) the ultimate ownership of the franchisee would be held; in identified proportions by three groups. The structure subsequently set up by M/s. Emerging Media was on identical lines as set out in the bid under which the Franchise Agreement was signed. Therefore in such scenario you are a potential witness in any further proceedings in this
matter.

C) That allegations in the show cause that Mr. Manoj Badale is not part of or related to M/s. Jaipur (IPL) is not only misconceived but a fiction, however I am not adverting on it further as a detailed explanation has
been given in my reply to show cause. However I wish to place on record the fact that you know very well that Manoj Badale has been and continues to represent M/s. Jaipur (IPL) Cricket Pvt Ltd. Now that the show cause after consultation with you makes an allegation that Mr. Manoj Badale had nothing to do with M/s Jaipur IPL is astonishing.
Hence to ensure that correct position of facts, your cross examination in the matter is necessary.
   
D) That there is an allegation in the show cause notice dated nil that I failed to disclose that my co- brother i.e. Mr. Suresh Chellaram was bidding in the consortium for Rajasthan. I wish to place on record that I have no direct or indirect interest in Rajasthan Royals. Mr. Suresh Chellaram is an independent business man and man of extensive financial resources. It is further submitted that he is my co-brother is known to all including you from many years. All e-mails regarding various activities sent to franchisees by BCCI/IPL have been marked to him regarding various activities of IPL from very inception which were also marked to you including the email dated 30th January, 2008 He was also present for the workshop in Goa on 8th February 2008 where most of the members of the governing council members were present.
It would also not be out of place to record here that Mr. Suresh Chellaram has been present and sitting with all the players in the dug out at various matches of Rajasthan Royals to the knowledge of everybody including your good self. Mr. Suresh Chellaram was present at the award winning ceremony at the conclusion of the first IPL in 2008 as the Championship was won by Rajasthan Royals where in you were also present. Hence I would require you to appear as a witness in case the matter is proceeded with further.

E) That the allegation that I tried to rig the bidding in favor of two bidders namely Adani's and Videocon has caused me much anguish and pain as all this time I had kept my peace in larger interest of the Board but
now that such an allegation has been made I am constrained to put the following facts on record -

a) That the ITT itself was drafted by the corporate lawyers of BCCI and approved by the in-house counsel Ms. Akhila Kaushik who also happens to be an ex-junior of your father Honorable Mr. V.R. Manohar and also your confidante having been appointed on your recommendation. That she reports directly to you on all such matters is common knowledge.

b) That, the criteria of net-worth of the bidder being US $ 1 Billion and deposit was specifically discussed by me with you and you approved the same. This fact is confirmed by your good self in the meeting of the Governing Council held on 7th March 2010.
   
c) That the actual facts leading to the cancellations are that you had pre-decided the issue of cancellation on 6th March itself without any consultation with the members of the Governing Council.

d) Till 5th March 2010, which was the deadline for submission of bids, only two bids had been received. These were the Videocon bid and the Adani bid. The fact that only two bids were received was prominently telecast in the electronic media on the same day and in the print media on the next day.

e) After the deadline for submitting bids, late in the evening and into the night of 5th March 2010 and in the morning of 6th March 2010, I received several calls from Mr. Shashi Tharoor and his Secretary Mr. Jacob, informing me that a third bid ("Kochi Bid") was coming from Delhi and requesting that I accept the same. I informed him
that the deadline for submission of bids had expired at 5 pm on 5th March 2010 and I had no authority to extend time. Mr. Tharoor told me that he would take up this matter with the President. That you spoke to Mr. Tharoor on several occasions was independently conveyed to me by both.

f) Whilst you and I were sitting together at the Four Seasons Hotel, at about 7 pm on 6th March 2010, a representative of the Kochi Franchise came with the Kochi bid and sought to hand it over to me. I declined to accept the same, saying it was beyond time. You however asked me to accept the bid. You advised me to anti time the bid to 12 noon for 6th March 2010. You seemed to be under extreme pressure to ensure that the late bid be included in the bidding process. Since you failed to ensure that the bid could not be included you then decided to ensure that the bid process itself is cancelled.

g) You told me that you would next day persuade the governing council that the bids to be cancelled. You asked me to tell the BCCI/IMG corporate lawyers to immediately start the process of preparing a fresh ITT (bid document) with several terms deleted. These included the Net Worth clause etc. I therefore instructed Mr. John Loffhagen of IMG accordingly.

h) Then you started calling various people from my phone asking them to get letters of objection from different corporate entities objecting on the different clauses relating to criterion of US $ 1 Billion and bank guarantee. To ensure that the infighting amongst the office bearers does not come out in open, I kept my peace. You then used my phone to made calls to Mr. Abhijit Sarkar of Sahara Group and asked me to speak to Mr. Shailesh Gupta of the Dainik
Jagran Group and told them to send letters on my e-mail id. It is common knowledge that you do not carry a mobile and neither do you have an email account and hence the calls were made from my mobile and the letters were addressed to you but sent on my email account. The letters were all addressed to your good self and the same letters were used by you next day in the Governing Council to cancel the bidding process. The letters were received between 20.00 p.m. to 23.00 p.m. on my email account for you on 6th March 2010. The copies of the mails have been separately filed along with the reply.

i) On the very next day, at the meeting of the Governing Council, you relied on these letters to persuade the Governing Council to cancel the bid - inter alia pointing out that there had been complaints about the excessive unreasonable and disproportionate bid conditions.

j) I had pointed out to you that the whole process of cancellation was illegal and contrary to ITT but then it seems that you were committed and hence under tremendous pressure to cancel the bid. It is also pertinent to note that it was the bid for Kochi supported again by the Hon'ble Minister (Mr. Shashi Tharoor) itself that came to be cancelled earlier and it was the Kochi bid only that has created the controversy in the next round when I was forced to sign the agreement by your good self inspite of the fact that the agreement has been signed with an un-incorporated joint venture and the same has no legal status in eyes of law and was done contrary to bid documents. I appreciate that due to involvement of a Cabinet Minister you had to do things which knowing you I believe you would not do in the normal course.

k)The two conditions, which were regarded as offending, had been personally cleared by me with you. The bid was issued on 22 Feb. 2009 and was open till 5 March. During this period no one (including Sahara + Jagaran complained). It is only on the eve of the Governing Council Meetings (after the Kochi bid was likely to be rejected as being delayed) that you set in motion a process whose object was to ensure that the bid itself was cancelled.

l) I further believe that the alleged complaint dated 16th March 2010 has been tailor made and procured on your insistence from the franchise that you have been batting for all this while. This fact Sir is corroborated by the fact that the same franchise had written email to you on 11th April, 2010 and the limited complaint was regarding breach of confidentiality clause and nothing else while in the complaint dated 16th April 2010 the story is totally different and interestingly the complaint is not marked to any other member of Governing Council. Hence, Sir, I would be constrained to call you as a witness to corroborate this fact further.

m) It is also pertinent to note that I would not have allowed you to get the letters of objection on my own email account if I had any vested interest in the two bidders, as they would have been successful bidders if you would not have cancelled the bidding process.

F) That it has been further stated in the Show Cause notice that communications were received from Senior Officers, committee members and others by you and these were oral in nature. I suggest that no such complaints and messages were ever received by you and Secretary has made a false statement attributing to you or then you have made a wrong statement and it being wrong to your knowledge, I would in this case be constrained to call you as a witness and cross examine you.

G) That in respect to the allegations in the Show Cause Notice dated nil regarding Television Rights given to Sony-MSM, a detailed explanation has been given by me in my reply to show cause. However I wish to place on record the fact that you were not only aware but also keeping day to day track of matters relating to termination of Sony Agreement on 14.03.2009, as also of subsequent litigation with Sony and thereafter subsequent settlement with Sony. Entire litigation with Sony was being directly supervised by Ms. Akhila Kaushik who in turn directly takes instructions from you. The Agreement with WSG Mauritius was in your direct knowledge. The strategy to issue extension letters to keep WSG Mauritius Agreement alive pending litigation was devised by Ms. Akhila Kaushik. You were kept apprised of all the developments leading to termination of WSG Mauritius Agreement and entering into of fresh agreement with Sony. The clauses in the new Sony Agreement before execution were also discussed with you. The scanned copy of the executed contract with Sony after my signatures on or around 9th April 2009 was also forwarded to you and to the Honorary Secretary as well as Ms. Akhila Kaushik on 11th April 2009. In fact the said Agreement was relied upon in various Court proceedings and affidavits were filed inter alia by the Secretary BCCI in respect of contents thereof. Now that the show cause after consultation with you makes various allegations as if you were not aware of contractual provisions of Sony agreement dated 25.03.2009 or grant of extension letters to WSG Mauritius is astonishing. Hence to ensure that correct position of facts, your cross examination in the matter is necessary.

Please note that I have all the documentary evidence to substantiate each and every averment made herein above. In view of the afore said it is humbly requested that you may consider not participating any further in any proceedings relating to show cause dated nil received on 26th April 2010.

I may finally add that I am making this application for keeping the institutional credibility of BCCI above personal interest. However, none of this should be considered to be a waiver of my legal rights for challenging the legality of the Show Cause notice and the ensuing proceedings, and my participation is entirely without prejudice to those rights.

b) EXCLUSION OF THE HONOURARY SECRETARY, Mr. N. SRINIVASAN FROM ANY FURTHER PROCEEDINGS IN THE COMPLAINT AND SHOW CAUSE NOTICE DATED NIL RECEIVED ON 26th APRIL 2010.

1. That I most humbly request that the Honorary Secretary, be barred and totally excluded from participating in the present proceedings, for the following, among other, reasons: -

a). Firstly, most of the grounds set out above, in relation to the Honorary President, apply a fortiori to the Honorary Secretary as well. The Honorary Secretary has been instrumental in sponsoring complaints against me - I would like to cross-examine him in the present enquiry. His participation would tantamount to him being a judge in his own cause.

b). Secondly, I have sufficient cause to apprehend bias on part of the Honorary Secretary. This stems from the manner in which I have consistently frustrated and exposed his attempts at mis-using his position as Honorary Secretary of the Board, so as to confer a wrongful benefit to his team (Chennai Super Kings) at the cost and expense of other teams and the B.C.C.I.

c). This application is not a catalogue of the improprieties of the Hon. Secretary - I have not desired this to be a "counter blast". Nonetheless it is at the same time necessary for me to state clearly the apprehensions that I harbor against the Hon. Secretary, for justifying my request that he recuse himself. It is for this purpose that this application seeks to concisely state some of the illegalities and improprieties.

d). My interactions with the Hon. Secretary, which give rise to, my apprehensions are as follows: -
i)Despite it being no part of his duties or functions, the Honorary Secretary attempted to alter or propose panel of umpires, who were to officiate at matches at the Indian Premier League and circulated an email directing a panel of umpires hand picked by him. The Honorary Secretary, in clear breach of IPL norms, attempted to ensure that umpires from Chennai / Tamil Nadu officiate over a match where his team was playing. This constituted a clear attempt at umpire fixing/match fixing. Upon my coming to know of this I objected to the same and removed them in the interest of the League.

ii)The Honorary Secretary has consistently pushed tailor made policies, which benefited and/or had the potential to benefit his own team - Chennai Super Kings. A case in point is the proposal to allow existing franchisees to retain 7 players (3 foreign and 4 Indian). The Reply sets out the actions of the Honorary Secretary(despite my strident opposition) in getting existing franchisees to retain 7 players, despite it being clearly agreed and understood that all players would be brought into the common pool at the end of year 3, so that new teams would have level playing field. The only reason for doing so was to ensure that Chennai Super King retained its players. In any event, the decision directly impinged on the fortunes of the Franchisee of which he is a managing director-his actions, which benefitted his company while using his powers as Hon. Secretary of the BCCI, were a clear and brazen case of abuse of power.

iii)The Honorary Secretary allowed a Bank Guarantee given by Zee, in the sum of US$.60 MILLIONS to lapse despite ZEE being in breach of its obligations. This was done to cause wrongful loss to the Board and wrongful gain to ZEE. My objections brought this fact to light. The Honorary Secretary has been meticulous in reminding every other company that we had Bank Guarantees with it ensuring they do not lapse. When I raised this, the response given was that he forgot about this. His conduct in allowing ZEE bank guarantee to lapse is clearly deliberate and his response too naive which has resulted in a big loss to BCCI.

iv)The Honorary Secretary made every possible effort to ensure that Mr. Pollard, a West Indian cricketer (who fetched the highest price at a player auction) should not be recruited by or play for Mumbai Indians, by raising some frivolous issues with the West Indian Cricket Board - this was obviously because Chennai Super Kings itself had bid and lost to Mumbai Indians for Kiron Pollard. Here again the actions of the Hon. Secretary were a brazen act of abuse
of power.

v)Further in the case of the auction which took place last year the Honorary secretary used his power to alter the auction rules specifically for himself to ensure the Chennai Super Kings could retain there full purse or 2 million dollars and although the purse available to him was only 1.85 million as circulated prior to the auction. Despite my opposition he used his clout as Secretary to pressure the Management to accept back dated player contracts and cancel the contracts of one of his players so that he could have his full purse and there by have a advantage in the bidding process vis a vis other Teams.

vi)I have continuously demonstrated how the Honorary Secretary attempted to misuse his office/post (first) as Hon. Treasurer and (later) as Hon. Secretary to further his personal and private interests at the cost and expense of the BCCI, the Indian Premier League, other franchisees and the game of cricket.
   
vii)I have consistently pointed out that the Honorary Secretary's wearing of two hats (administrator and team owner) had placed him in a clear conflict of interest position, which he had, misused andexploited.

viii)The above can be treated as complaints and a show cause are immediately issued to the honorary secretary, and pending an investigation he be suspended.

e) A large number of the allegations made in the Show Cause Notice are false to the knowledge of the Honorary Secretary. In particular, the Honorary Secretary was fully aware of the interest of Mr. Chellaram and Mr. Burman in the two franchisees and the fact that they were my relatives. Despite this, an allegation has been made in the Show Cause Notice. Similarly, a copy of the agreement between WSG Mauritius and Sony was e mailed to the Honorary Secretary, as soon as I got the original agreement for my signature. Honorary Secretary has even sworn an affidavit before the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi on 11th April 2008 to this effect. A copy of the same has been filed along with my reply. Therefore
the allegation qua SONY - MSM is false and false to the knowledge of the Secretary as either he is lying now or he has committed perjury in Hon'ble Delhi High Court.

f) A former President Mr. A.C Muthaiah has raised the issue relating to conflict of interest. In response to this, upon the insistence of and to support Mr. N. Srinivasan an alleged amendment seems to have been made in the regulation 6.2.4 of the Regulations. It is unfortunate that to protect the position of Mr. Srinivasan, false statements have been made in
pleadings filed in Court. In this context, I would like to state as follows: No such amendment was ever made and the Secretary has filed false affidavits in the Hon'ble High Court to support his own case. In the proceedings filed by Mr. Mutthaiah, it has been stated by the Honorary Secretary on oath that the Regulation 6.2.4 was amended after an action taken report was filed by the two-member committee consisting of Mr. Shashank Manohar and Mr. Niranjan Shah recommending amendment. I state that no such committee was ever appointed, no recommendation was ever made, no special general body meeting approving such report and such amendment ever took place and hence Mr. Shashank Manohar (the Present President), Mr. Niranjan Shah- the Vice Chairman- IPL and Mr. N.Srinavasan have connived and played not only on the members of
the Board but also on the Hon'ble Court. I further state that the minutes of the Annual General Body Meeting dated 28th September 2008 were written up by the Honorary Secretary in a manner to reflect a position which is simply not true, when the same were presented for approval in the A.G.M in September, 2009. These documents were created or fabricated only post a notice was issued by Mr. A.C Mutthaiah to the Honorary President, asking the President to look into this matter and issue a show cause notice to Mr. N Srinivasan for violating the regulation 6.2.4 of the Regulations.

2.Since I have been opposed to this manner of functioning from the very inception, it is obvious that to protect his position, the Hon Secretary has good reason not just to defame me but also to find me guilty of these imaginary wrong doings alleged in the Show Cause notice.

3) APPOINTMENT OF A BODY COMPRISING OF INDEPENDENT PERSONS FOR ADJUDICATING AS WELL AS DETERMINING
WHETHER THE CAUSE SHOWN BY ME IS SUFFICIENT OR NOT IN TERMS OF ARTICLE 32 (IV) OF THE BCCI RULES: -

A. That a bare perusal of the allegations and the contents of the Show Cause Notice reveal that the allegations have been leveled against me qua my actions taken as the Chairman and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League. One of these allegations stated is that several agreements were signed (by me) without approval or without showing it to the members of the Governing Council of the Indian Premier League. It is my respectful submission that all the actions that I have taken were taken with proper approval and settled practice as followed by the Governing Council. It is my case that all the actions, documents, expenditures, revenue and agreements were settled and ratified by the Governing Council and subsequently approved by the General Body of the Board of which each member is a participant. I was only implementing the decision of the Governing Council.

B.It is in such peculiar situation and in view of the allegation that many of actions were not approved by the members of the Governing Council or by the General Body of the Board, each and every member of the Governing Council and the persons representing affiliated members, may be a witness in these proceedings. Members were fully aware of each and every action taken by me and were party to such decisions having approved the same in the meetings of the Governing Council. In such a
scenario by necessary implication all the members of the Governing Council and representatives of the affiliated members become important witnesses in the present proceedings.

C.It is submitted that it is not my endeavor to create any technical hurdle in the process and no hurdle shall be caused if an independent body constituting of other members of the Board is formed. It is submitted that there are only 14 members of the Governing Council and hence BCCI can choose and appoint independent persons to investigate into these allegations. But here again I may want to bring certain members as my witness as many of the allegations referred to have been specifically approved by members at various AGM's and SGM's.

I would further suggest that it would be in the interest of justice if either persons with judicial experience and who have held high judicial office (like former Chief Justices of India) may be included in the panel.

D.The President is an eminent lawyer well versed with the principles of rule of law, of which the principles of natural justice are an integral part and therefore, in view of the facts and circumstances which have been fully elaborated upon in reply to the Show Cause Notice and herein above would favorably consider my request and not only recuse himself from any further proceedings relating to the aforesaid Show Cause Notice but would also restrain the Honorary Secretary from being part of and interfering with such proceedings.

I have been advised that the judgments of the Supreme Court have now laid down that the right to reputation and dignity is a facet of the right to life, and is a protected fundamental right of citizens of India. I have tried to give my best to make the IPL a success and make Indian Cricket the strongest sport in the world- the IPL rivals the success of other major sports such as football and basketball in the U.S.A - which in turn has been considered the largest sporting events of the world.

The decision on this show cause notice would have serious repercussions on my reputation, and I am constitutionally entitled to fairness. Besides, I am advised that the Supreme Court has also held that in such matters the BCCI is bound to act fairly.

The ill-founded half-truths aired in the media have perturbed not just the BCCI but all the lovers of cricket the world over and in fact the entire sporting world. Justice should thus also appear to be done for the entire sporting community
waits anxiously to see the result of this enquiry.
 
13It is therefore respectfully prayed that the President and the Hon Secretary recuse themselves, and an independent panel be appointed by the BCCI as prayed for.

Thanking you
Lalit Kumar Modi
Chairman and Commissioner IPL (suspended)
Cc-

1.Mr. N. SRINIVASAN,
SECRETARY, BOARD FOR CONTROL OF CRICKET IN INDIA
MUMBAI, Owner Chennai Super Kings (India Cements)

2.MEMBERS
GOVERNING COUNCIL -IPL