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MUMBAI:
Lalit Modi who was suspended last Monday has been dealt a
blow with all members of the BCCI Working Committee endorsing
charges including that of bid-rigging against him.
BCCI
president Shashank Manohar, at a meeting on 2 May, explained
to the 22 members of the committee just why it was important
to suspend Modi from all IPL and Board posts. Modi has been
given time to reply to a show-cause notice that the BCCI had
issued on 26 April.
Cricket
Association of Bengal chief Jagmohan Dalmiya questioned on
the expenditure side of the Indian Premier League, raising
doubts of financial irregularities.
Meanwhile, Kings X1 Punjab co-owners Preity Zinta and Mohit
Burman visited BCCI headquarters during the meeting. They
handed over some documents relevant to the shareholding details
of the IPL franchise and stayed briefly.
In
another bit of news the Enforcement Directorate has found
that one of its own officers was involved with Modi. An official
complaint made by the Central Board of Direct Taxes to the
ED headquarters in New Delhi has revealed the links between
this officer and Modi. Through SMS the officer asked for favours
including match tickets.
Sunil
Gavaskar who is a member of the IPL Governing Council but
who has not said much since the controversy started, wrote
a column in The Times of India. In it, he said how he and
fellow cricketers in the IPL had complete faith in financial
experts in the committee.
"Pity,
we cricketers don't have so much knowledge, for then we would
have been able to understand a lot of the financial and legal
issues that came up in council meetings. We cricketers looked
at all the others who were knowledgeable about finance and
trusted their expertise. When it came to cricketing matters,
they looked at us and when we talked cricket they nodded their
heads too," he said.
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