BCCI to suspend Lalit Modi

(Cricinfo) The BCCI is set to suspend Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman, following several allegations of financial misconduct over the past fortnight.

The suspension notice was likely to have been served on him at the conclusion of yesterday’s tournament final in Mumbai and it is understood Modi will be given 48 hours to answer the charges that will be levelled at him.

Modi has not signalled his intentions if and when he is axed but he is likely to go to court.

The IPL governing council is due to meet today and, though the meeting was called by BCCI president Shashank Manohar, Modi had sent out an agenda that included asking all those filing charges to bring documentary evidence. It now appears that Modi will not be allowed to attend that meeting.

The meeting is likely to pick an interim IPL chairman and work out a plan for the future – not just for the league but also for tackling Modi, who does not appear likely to leave quietly. The BCCI would have preferred Modi resigning, as that would have ended the matter there.

A suspension would mean, at some stage, documents and transactions being scrutinised.

Once the suspension notice is served – both via email and in writing – Modi will be given 48 hours to respond to the charges. If his response is deemed unsatisfactory, the board will pass a resolution to terminate him at the working committee meeting on May 2. That will then go to vote at the special AGM, which can be held a week after the working committee meeting.

Through much of the past two days negotiators – including two franchise owners – have been working on Modi to resign. On Sunday evening, though, the die appeared cast – hours before the final got under way, Modi tweeted his decision to attend today’s meeting, a reversal of his earlier stand. Later in the evening the IPL secretariat sent out a mail from Modi.

“On the agenda will be a discussion on any complaints received in writing from members of the governing council against the chairman, other members of the council and/or the BCCI,” it said. “Members of the governing council have been requested to give all such complaints in writing with the requisite supporting documents at the meeting to the chairman so they can be replied in full.”

Now that seems to be irrelevant. One member of the governing council told Cricinfo the BCCI president was vested with the powers to suspend any member. “Under the provisions of the BCCI constitution, the president can utilise Article 32 to suspend a member and an enquiry committee will be instituted to probe the matter further.”