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Mumbai: The days of suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi are all but over. The IPL Governing Council (GC) which met on Friday at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) headquarters, drafted an agenda for the Special General Body Meeting to be held on July 3 which will decide on the beleaguered Modi's expulsion.
On the big issue of the re-negotiated TV rights deal (approx worth $1 billion for the period 2009-2017) with MSM Satellite (Singapore) Private Ltd, the GC was informed that the agreement has been re-amended and MSMS has been asked to return the Rs 425 crore ($80m) 'facilitation' fee paid to World Sports Group to facilitate the contract during Modi's regime.
At the meeting, the replies of the three show-cause notices sent to Modi (it may be recalled that it ran into several thousand pages) were presented to the GC and were found unsatisfactory. Later in a statement, BCCI secretary N Srinivasan said the three notices were slapped "mainly on charges of financial irregularities like proxy investment and bid-rigging".
The council was also apprised of the investigation findings involving deals done by Modi during the first three seasons of the Twenty20 league and several irregularities were found.
"We found out major irregularities that have been committed by the past chairman and discussed how we would proceed from here. The various problems that IPL has gone through were put forward and decisions were taken," Farooq Abdullah, member, GC told the media soon after the meeting.
Abdullah, also a vice-president of the BCCI, added that the council was convinced that Modi committed more
irregularities while adding two new franchises to the IPL earlier this year.
"We hope that people would come to know as to what transpired in these things. How various franchisees were added and what kind of irregularities were done," he said.
Abdullah stressed that the GC also discussed the Special General Body meeting (scheduled for July 3) which is expected to hit the final nail. "The agenda (of the meeting) was prepared today and all these (issues) were discussed," said Abdullah.
As for the Tv deal with MSM, Srinivasan said, "The Governing Council-IPL had approved an amended Media Rights Agreement with MSM Satellite (Singapore) Pvt. Ltd. in which MSM has agreed to pay the balance payable under the Facilitation Fee Agreement to the BCCI. Thus, they have agreed to pay Rs 300 crores as part of the rights fee to BCCI. MSM Satellite (Singapore) are taking steps to recover Rs 125 crores already paid to WSG Mauritius and on recovery, will pay the same to BCCI," Srinivasan said in a statement.
MSMS also issued a statement agreeing to pay back BCCI, but by way of installments, and announced that they had scrapped their deal with WSG.
"The BCCI has disclosed certain facts, hitherto not known to MSMS that confirm that the broadcast rights were exclusively with it (the BCCI) immediately prior to and at the time of the grant of the rights by BCCI to MSMS. In light of these new facts MSMS has cancelled all future payment demands that WSG may make vis-a-vis the balance of Rs 300 crores in eight installments spread over the next seven years and has also initiated legal action in India," said the statement.
The GC also took into account the expenditure made by Modi towards the running of IPL office from a five-star hotel in Mumbai and his ground transportation. While the hotel bills are to the tune of Rs 1 crore and 43 lakh, cars used by him cost Rs 43 lakh in hiring charges. The cricket board is unlikely to clear the bills, sources said.
Three GC members IS Bindra, Arun Jaitley and Rajeev Shukla did not attend the meeting.
