New Delhi: Taking a tough stand and slamming defiant Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner and president Lalit Modi, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Shashank Manohar on Thursday said the governing council meeting (GCM) of the BCCI on April 26 to discuss the IPL matter would go on even without the attendance of Modi who challenged the legality of the meeting.
The BCCI also accused Modi of breach of confidentiality by selectively tweeting on the IPL Kochi franchisee owners on April 11 this year while keeping mum on other owners' details since January 2008.
“It is his view point. Everybody has his own point of view,” Manohar said when questioned on the refusal of Modi to not attend the meeting which the IPL chief called unofficial.
Manohar made it clear that Modi has no option but to comply with the BCCI.
Manohar said Modi has breached the clause of confidentiality by leaking details on Kochi.
Manohar said he had asked Modi to keep mum after (Vivek) Venugopal (IPL Kochi stakeholder) decided to take legal action against him for leaking details (tweets on Kochi that led to Shashi Tharoor's resignation) but Modi when pounced by media said he would disclose all names of the franchisees immediately, something he had not done for two years.
“We said so (to wait) because we have to look through the documents which we have never seen in our life. That is why we will discuss all these issue in the governing council meeting. If required we have to take legal opinion,” said Manohar, adding that all members of the governing council had agreed to that.
“He (Modi) himself agreed to me (to hold back the disclosure till detailed scrutiny of everything) when I wrote to him (on making disclosures after the governing council meeting),” said Manohar, adding that ten days would have not made any difference to something which he (Modi) had not done for two years.
Pushed to corner on the IPL scam, Lalit Modi on Wednesday directly took on BCCI president Shashank Manohar and challenged the top-brass to go ahead with the governing council meeting on April 26, day after the final of the Twenty20 league in Navi Mumbai.
In his e-mail to Manohar, Lalit Modi wrote, "Dear Shashank, I disagree with you completely. The IPL has been given the powers by the General body to hold their own meetings and I am sorry to say the Hon Secretary (N.Srinivasan) has never called a GC since inception nor is the convenor. He is actually an ex-officio member of the GC as a office bearer of BCCI and as he is a conflicted party who owns a team he has never and can now too not call a GC meeting.
BCCI, however, maintained that a meeting convened by Srinivasan is valid as he was a declared bidder (for Chennai Super Kings) and rather Modi himself should have disclosed that he had relatives among the franchisee owners.
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