Lalit Modi to file reply to second show cause notice tomorrow

Lalit Modi will tomorrow submit his reply to the second showcause notice issued to him by the BCCI which accuses the suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner of planning a rebel Twenty20 league in England.

"The reply would be filed tomorrow. It would not be as voluminous (as the reply to the first show cause)," Modi's legal adviser Mehmood Abdi reiterated today.

Modi's reply to the first show cause served on him soon after the conclusion of IPL's third edition on April 25 ran up to over 15,000 pages, including a 160-page main reply with supporting documents.

Modi responded to the first notice over allegations of murky financial deals in the IPL and bid rigging on May 15. He was served a second show cause by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on May 6 based on an e-mail sent to the Board by England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Giles Clarke.

In his e-mail, Clarke leveled serious charges against Modi that the Board found "detrimental to Indian cricket, English cricket and World cricket at large."

The notice referred to Modi's March 31 meeting in Delhi with representatives of English counties Yorkshire, Lancashire and Warwickshire in which he allegedly talked about a parallel Twenty20 league in England and Wales in which eight existing franchises would bid for nine counties in the UK.

"You have allegedly discussed this as a commercial proposition...and also set out that IPL would guarantee each county a minimum of $3 to $5 million per annum plus a staging fee of $1.5 million if the counties supported this idea," the BCCI notice said.

"You have allegedly offered a structured deal, by which the returns would be shared 80:20 between the franchises and the counties, a player model based on the IPL model and offered inducement to gather the rest of the county members to support your ideas and goad them to overpower their own governing bodies," it said.

"You have allegedly planted a seed of thought of players' revolt if the governing bodies of respective cricket boards do not allow them to participate in this extended version of IPL," it added.

"It challenges not just the authority of BCCI but also (that of) ECB and suggested that IPL would henceforth literally shift to the hands of the franchises and the respective national governing bodies would be forced to watch helplessly while the game and the power of administration are hijacked," Srinivasan said in the notice.

"The volume of the reply depends on the issues raised. I don't think the reply would be as voluminous (as the first). We will try to satisfy the Board (with the reply)," Abdi told PTI a few days ago when asked whether the second reply would be as staggering as the first one.

Modi sought and obtained a 10-day breather to reply to the second show cause notice from the BCCI and the deadline ends tomorrow. Incidentally the board's marketing committee meeting, chaired by president Shashank Manohar, has also been convened in Mumbai tomorrow to decide on team sponsorship that has boiled down to a two-horse race between Bharti Airtel and Sahara Group.

The BCCI is yet to reply to Modi's recent 14-page letter to BCCI president Manohar asking both the board chief and secretary Srinivasan to recuse themselves from any future proceedings against the suspended IPL commissioner.

Modi had launched a scathing attack on Srinivasan in his letter to Manohar, saying the BCCI secretary should not be part of the panel adjudicating charges of financial irregularities against him.

In his letter, Modi said Manohar too should stay away from the proceedings, since it would "tantamount to being a judge, witness and a potential co-notice" in the case.

Modi alleged Srinivasan had grossly misused his power as BCCI secretary and said there was a clear case of "conflict of interests" since he was also owner of the Chennai Super Kings team in the IPL.

"But I'm quite optimistic they (BCCI) would respond (to the letter from Modi)," Abdi said a few days ago.

Asked about the future course of action, including legal, if the response was not favourable to Modi, Abdi had said, "Let's wait and see. Let's not pre-empt the matter."