Bombay High Court dismisses Lalit Modi's Petition

NEW DELHI: Suspended IPL commissioner Lalit Modi's petition, challenging disciplinary proceedings initiated against him by the BCCI, has been dismissed by the Bombay High Court on Thursday.

The Bombay High Court reserved its order on the petition filed by Lalit Modi on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, BCCI CAO Ratnakar Shetty said the honourable Bombay High Court has directed Modi to appear before BCCI's discplinary committee rejecting all his allegations that the committee is biased against him.

Earlier on Wednesday, Modi's lawyer Virag Tulzhapurkar told the court that his client can't expect "impartial and honest" decision from disciplinary committee which will conduct enquiry against him.

The committee is going to meet on July 16 and has summoned Modi to appear. But Modi has sought an independent "outside" body for conducting inquiry instead of the present disciplinary panel of Arun Jaitley, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Chirayu Amin, IPL's interim Chairman.

"Decision of this committee is a foregone conclusion," said Tulzhapurkar.

He alleged that actions of BCCI secretary N Srinivasan "were actuated by bias against Modi", as the latter had made allegations against Srinivasan regarding having a stake in IPL franchise team Chennai Super Kings.

Similarly, Amin, a member of the committee and acting Chairman of IPL, too had a personal bias against Modi, said advocate Tulzhapurkar.

Even Jaitley should not be on the panel because he, along with Amin, was part of the IPL's governing council which "ratified" Srinivasan's opinion that there was prima facie evidence to initiate disciplinary inquiry against Modi, he said.

Its impossible to expect honest and impartial decision from the committee," Modi's lawyer said.

He also pointed out -- to emphasise that the BCCI has already made its mind in Modi's case -- that it scrapped the telecast rights' contract with Mauritius-based World Sport Group (WSG).

One of the allegations against Modi is that the tender process for the contract was questionable, he said.

Facilitation fee of $80 million (Rs 425 crore) paid by IPL's sub-continent broadcast rights holders MSM Satellite to WSG (Mauritius) had been termed as fraudulent by the BCCI.

However, when division bench of Justice B H Marlapalle and Justice Roshan Dalvi asked whether BCCI rules provide for an "independent" disciplinary committee, Modi's lawyer said that it was not so.

The lawyer for the BCCI, A Sundaram, argued that the High Court could not hear this petition as the BCCI was a society and this was an internal matter.

Modi was its member and he knew its rules, he said. Sundaram also said that the decision to initiate inquiry and constitute disciplinary committee was that of the general body and not the IPL governing council.

Reserving the order for Thursday, judges said that they would only consider whether the disciplinary committee should be re-constituted or not.

When one of the lawyers for BCCI said that Modi's allegations were "fanciful", Justice Marlapalle said, "In general the game of cricket has become fanciful", evoking laughter.

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ICC snubs WADA, adopts own code

KOLKATA: After deliberating for almost one year, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has formulated its own Anti-Doping Policy that borrows heavily from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code, but only flirts with the contentious 'whereabouts clause'. 

This means that Mahendra Singh Dhoni will not have to disclose to Wada agents where he will be going on his honeymoon because the ICC anti-doping code does not require him to disclose his whereabouts when he is on a holiday. 

It signals a big victory for Indian players, who had serious reservations about disclosing their whereabouts throughout the year. The Dhonis and Tendulkars, of course, had the strong backing of the BCCI, which not only refused to be Wada-compliant, but has been instrumental in pushing through a new cricket-specific anti-doping code that has been unanimously accepted by all other member Boards, some of which had earlier succumbed to international pressure and signed the Wada code. 

Under the new ICC code, the whereabouts clause will be applicable in only four cases: 

1) If a player has been found guilty of doping, he/concerned Board has to give his daily whereabouts to the ICC. 

2) When two or more teams are involved in a bilateral or a tri-series, it would be the duty of the concerned boards to provide all details about their teams (right from flight nos, hotel stay, practice and match schedules, tour itinerary and even transit stay etc) to the anti-doping arm of the ICC. 

3) If a player is injured and remains unfit for more than three months (180 days), he/his Board will be obliged to update his whereabouts on a daily basis till such time he is declared fit. 

4) If a player named in ICC's testing pool is dropped and not picked for three months at a stretch, the onus will be on the concerned Board to have him tested, if needed. 

The final draft of the ICC anti-doping code, which was drawn up after detailed discussion with representatives of every national cricket Board at the Singapore summit earlier this month, was given the final touches by ICC lawyers John Long and Ian Higgins in consultation with BCCI president Shashank Manohar and secretary N Srinivasan in Nagpur on July 7. 

It is now ready and awaits the signature of the CEOs of all the member boards. The new code will take effect from August 1. Before that, the ICC, of course, needs to name its testing pool which will comprise a maximum of 11 players (5 batsmen, 5 bowlers and one wicketkeeper) from each nation as per the ICC ODI rankings. The list will be revised from time to time by the ICC to bring more players under the testing scheme. 

ICC, thus, will remain outside the purview of Wada, and stay away from all events organised by the IOC like the Olympic Games or those organised by its allied units like the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. 

However, individual Boards would be free to send their teams to these events, if the governments of their respective countries insist on it. 

For example, Sri Lankan Cricket (SLC), which is set to sign ICC's new anti-doping code, is committed to sending a second-string team to Guangzhou, where cricket's T20 version will make its debut in the Asian Games later this year. 

The BCCI has already made it known that it would not send any team to the Asian Games and there will be no change in its stance in light of the new code.

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