Lalit Modi continues to miss BCCI meetings
The Board of Control for Cricket in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 isn't making any decisions yet on whether or not to overhaul the disciplinary committeee currently dealing with Lalit Modi, the suspended chairman of the Indian Premier League of cricket. The beleaguered Modi, for his part, continues to be a no-show at the hearings.
Modi had been suspended by the BCCI as the chairman of the IPL after allegations of fraud and nepotism – amongst others – against him. The BCCI had served him the suspension immediately after the final of the third edition of the IPL that the Chennai Super Kings had won at http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mumbai-c820 against the Mumbai Indians.
A three-man disciplinary committee comprising of Chirayu Amin, the interim chief of the IPL, Arun Jaitley, the chief of the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Delhi-c780 cricket association, and a prominent lawyer and politician, and Jyotiraditya Scindia. The Modi camp has demanded that Amin and Jaitley should be replaced from the committee because they hold sufficient grounds for a bias against Modi.
Modi’s lawyers represented him in this third disciplinary meeting – which the beleaguered chief again chose to avoid going to because of security concerns. They said that the committee had finished hearing the arguments from both the sides of the table and will make the decision around the same as and when they deemed possible.
It was also said that the hearing around this issue was complete and there will be no further meeting regarding this.
The Indian cricket board also released a press release which said that the committee will make the announcement related to recusal whenever it made the decision. The date for the next meeting has not been set and will depend on the date when the announcement related to recusal is made.
Modi had also requested for the presence of a retired Supreme Court judge on the panel, but for now, that issue has taken a back seat. The same will be decided if and when the BCCI disciplinary committee decides to overhaul the members.
During the meeting, the disciplinary committee also spoke about the presence of one of the lawyers from the Modi camp, Venkatesh Dhond. There was an earlier chance that Dhond could have been called up to witness box during the disciplinary proceedings, and if that were to happen, it could have meant that he would have to recuse himself from the case. However, the BCCI said that the lawyer would not be called up as a witness and that means that he can keep representing Modi.
This was the third time that Modi did not attend the meeting. It had been suggested that Modi would attend it via video conferencing, but he chose not to due to reasons undisclosed. However, he did send Twitter updates, by exclaiming surprise over the questions raised against Mr. Dhond. He tweeted, “just heard that BCCI want my lawyers to recuse themselves! Shocked since meeting was for committee's recusal.”
This essentially means that the chances of Modi returning back to the fold before the Champions League T20, 2010, even if he is exonerated by the BCCI, are bleak. The Champions League T20 is another brainchild of Modi, which was conceived immediately after the first edition of the IPL. In this tournament, cricket clubs from all over the world participate. The first edition of the CLT20 was to be played in 2008, but the Mumbai terrorist attacks meant that the tournament was cancelled. In 2009, this was played for the first time and saw the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-South-Wales-c823 win the trophy. The third edition of the tournament starts on 10 September.
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