BCCI Chief Says, Modi Violated Secrecy Clause

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, April 22: BCCI president Shashank Manohar has slammed IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi by saying that he has violated the confidential clause, which he should not do in a public domain. 

 

 

Manohar said Modi has put all the share holding details on the micro blogging site Twitter that was violation of clause and it will be discussed in the governing council meet on the April 26th. 

Manohar, who has thus far declined to comment on issues surrounding the ongoing IPL controversy, broke his silence on Wednesday evening, after IPL commissioner Lalit Modi allegedly leaked an email exchange with him to show that Mr Manohar did not allow the shareholding of IPL franchisees to be made public despite Mr Modi’s requests.

“By leaking an internal communication of the cricket board to the media, Lalit Modi has breached all propriety and hence I’m forced to break my silence,” Manohar said, speaking  to Economic Times.

Manohar said Modi was selectively leaking communication to create a particular impression, while the complete picture is very different.

Manohar succeeded Sharad Pawar as BCCI president and is widely seen as having the trust and support of the Union agriculture minister. With his open and public spat with Manohar, Modi might have extinguished any remaining support he had from  Pawar.

On Wednesday evening, several television channels reported, citing an email exchange in their possession, that Mr Modi was in fact in favour of disclosing the shareholding pattern of all IPL franchisees.

“Propriety and fair play demand that we should disclose details of IPL franchises. Let’s disclose ownership details along with names of all directors once again. If everyone is okay with this we will issue the details right away. This way all doubts and aspersions being cast against IPL will be rebutted,” Modi reportedly wrote in an email to Mr Manohar that was copied to nearly 70 people, including franchisee owners.

“This email was sent three days after he unilaterally disclosed the ownership of the Kochi consortium on Twitter,” Manohar said.

According to Manohar, he received a notice from the Kochi consortium on April 11, pointing out that Modi’s unilateral disclosure was against the confidentiality clause in the agreement between BCCI-IPL and the franchisees. Manohar had also sent a stern message to Modi asking him to explain why he violated the confidentiality agreements.

“This email was sent to me on April 14. For three years he did not think about disclosing the ownership pattern and suddenly three days after he violated the norms, he wanted to disclose,” Manohar said over phone, speaking from his residence in Nagpur.

“He had marked the email to some 70 people who had nothing to do with decision-making in the IPL or the BCCI. I replied to him copying only the members of the governing council,” Manohar said. 

The BCCI president, a prominent Nagpur-based lawyer who is known to be low-profile to a fault, read out the contents of his reply.

“The subject line said for your eyes only. It was clearly an internal communication of the board,”  Manohar said.

The board president said his response was derived from two reasons. One, he had already received a notice for violation of confidentiality norms, and second, the IPL governing council members were in different cities and they could see the documents and take a decision only after a meeting was held.