Lalit Modi stands isolated

Additionally, the IPL chairman’s plea to defer Monday’s emergent governing council meeting by five days to give him time to prepare his replies and counter all allegations too is unlikely to find any takers, with the BCCI determined, it is learnt, to ensure that his days in the IPL, and most likely the Board, too, are over. As things stand now, the meeting will begin at the Board’s Cricket Centre at Churchgate at 10:00 am.

Modi didn’t follow up on his threat to approach the Bombay High Court on Friday to procure a stay order against the governing council meeting called by BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, perhaps a direct fall-out of his Thursday night meeting in New Delhi with Sharad Pawar, the ICC’s president-in-waiting.

The hitherto unquestioned IPL supremo had threatened to move the court to obtain a stay against the April 26 meeting convened by Srinivasan, terming it illegal and contending that only he, as the chairman of the IPL, had the authority to call a GC meeting.

Responding to an e-mail from Modi questioning the legality of Srinivasan convening the meeting, BCCI president Shashank Manohar had said: “It appears that you are unaware of the Constitutional provisions wherein the honorary secretary is the convener of all the meetings including the meetings of the sub-committee. It is only as a matter of courtesy that I wrote to you to convene a meeting of the Governing Council on April 26, 2010, as you are the chairman of the IPL sub-committee, expecting you to ask the honorary secretary to convene the meeting.

“However, as you did not convene the meeting in spite of the fact that the issues relating to IPL were serious and emergent, I directly asked the honorary secretary to convene the Governing Council meeting for April 26, 2010. Your request for postponing the meeting to 1st of May cannot be granted as the issues are serious and reflect badly on the BCCI/IPL.”

‘He must go’
It is learnt from highly placed sources that the Union Government has made it amply clear to the BCCI that Modi must go. Originally asked to quit by Friday, April 23, Modi has apparently been given time now by the BCCI till Sunday, April 25—the night of the IPL final—to make as honourable an exit as possible under the circumstances.

Otherwise, it is likely that he will be suspended as IPL chairman during the GC meeting by president Manohar even in absentia. It will then require a three-fourths majority at the Board AGM for that suspension to be ratified and expanded into a sack.

These sources further revealed that for Friday night’s IPL awards function, an expenditure of Rs 12.5 crore is to be incurred, a fact made known only belatedly to members of the IPL/BCCI beyond Modi.

Performers at the awards night are to have received substantial amounts running into lakhs, with one Bollywood superstar associated with an IPL franchisee being paid Rs 1.5 crore for his services.

Meanwhile, IPL CEO Sundar Raman and the Board’s Tax consultant P B Srinivasan handed over the details of transactions with the eight original franchises to the Income-Tax department on Friday afternoon.

The International Management Group’s Ravi Krishnan too submitted papers to the I-T department.