Lalit Modi's detailed response to the corruption allegations against him has been delivered in six large boxes to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BBCI). Lawyer representing the suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) chief delivered the thousands of pages of documents late on Saturday, meeting a deadline which had been extended by five days. Modi followed it up with a confident posting on Twitter. "It's best to allow my colleagues time to go thru my reply," Modi said in his tweet. "We spent weeks putting it together."
The BCCI is investigating Modi over his involvement in the initial bids for the Rajasthan Royals and the Kings XI Punjab at the inaugural IPL auctions in 2008, in a broadcast deal and in the awarding of two new IPL franchises last month. Modi was the powerbroker in establishing the IPL and then turning it into a multi-billion dollar enterprise, which has led to an explosion of interest in the shortest form of cricket.
Mehmood S Abdi, Modi's lawyer, declined to elaborate on the contents of the six cartons delivered to Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI chief administrator, but told reporters he was confident that the charges against Modi would be dropped. "The charges were based on allegations and gossip. BCCI can never prove it. We are confident all the charges against Modi will be dropped," Abdi said. "The reply has been written in simple prose and Shashank Manohar, the BCCI president who himself is a lawyer, will need only a few hours to go through it."
Shetty did not comment on the documents or what the next step in the proceedings was likely to be, saying only that "there is a procedure in the BCCI and the president will follow that." Modi, who has been barred from participating in the operation of the IPL, said his running of the league was transparent and denied any corruption. * AP
