IN a late-night operation, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) suspended Mr Lalit Modi as commissioner of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The BCCI’s 34-page chargesheet lists 22 allegations against Mr Modi,
ranging from financial irregularities to rigging bids and proxy holdings in at least three teams; the Kolkata Knight Riders, the Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings XI. He is also accused of receiving an $80 million kickback when he renegotiated TV broadcast rights. One of the most serious charges against Mr Modi is that he acted as an autocrat and never consulted the governing council of the IPL. It is Mr Modi’s turn now to send his response. The president of the BCCI said the proceedings against Modi will be dropped if he provides a convincing reply to the show cause notice issued to him.
If the BCCI is convinced of Mr Modi’s involvement in corruption and violating the norms and rules of the BCCI for his own personal and financial gains prima facie, why did not it summarily sack him? The reason could be the BCCI might like to play safe as Mr Modi might reveal things against others. The monopoly which the BCCI enjoys in cricket has made it arrogant and unaccountable. No one knows how much money the BCCI has in its possession. The IPL was launched in 2008 when the Union Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar was the chief of the BCCI but it obviously went beyond control, though still profitable to the board. Like the parent body the IPL too never cared much for transparency and accountability. It would be wrong to believe that Mr Modi, who understood the game of money making more than cricket, could not have been stopped earlier if the BCCI had wanted. Letting him go on has brought a bad name to cricket.
During the last three years, the IPL has become a ‘great, valuable property’ of the BCCI, as observed by the chief, Mr Shashank Manohar. But at the same time he ought to have explained at what cost? There is no tenable reason to defend Mr Modi, but sacrificing him to protect the image of the BCCI and also the skin of its office bearers is unethical. Mr Manohar’s defence that the BCCI had to intervene only after the allegations became public is not very convincing. It is a matter of utter shame for the BCCI that it did not know what the chairman of its IPL was doing, that too at a time when the stakes of IPL have gone quite high and in 2010 it was valued at approximately $4 billion (about Rs 18,000 crore).
The stake of this huge scale provides an insight into the nature of involvement of the government machinery, the politicians and bureaucrats. Mr Modi might be a swashbuckler and autocrat but one thing is absolutely clear: he would not have succeeded in his mission without the active patronage of these three elements. Air India flights were delayed for passengers and diverted to ensure that teams reached their destination without much fuss. It is significant that at the state level the BCCI is virtually controlled by powerful politicians. Since politicians were there to take care of it, the IPL did not bother about income tax or any other financial agency. It is intriguing how could the financial agencies of the government turn a blind eye to all that happened in IPL during the last three years. The opposition has demanded a JPC probe. But going by the nature of the financial crime, the government should also include the CBI in the probe along with the IT and ED. There is imperative need to broad base the investigation. The government should ensure that the beneficiary politicians must not succeed in scuttling the probe and protecting the guilty.
