India news

Lalit Modi likely to get life ban from BCCI

 

The BCCI is set to ban former IPL chairman Lalit Modifor life in a Special General Meeting in Chennai on September 25. The SGM will act upon the report filed by a special disciplinary committee constituted to look into various charges related to financial irregularityagainst Modi.

The committee, comprising BCCI vice-president Arun Jaitley, former IPL chairman Chirayu Amin and BCCI's finance committee chairman Jyotiraditya Scindia, had filed a 500-page report in July after investigating charges against Modi, who was suspended minutes after the conclusion of the IPL 2010 final.

Despite the board being divided over president N Srinivasan's role in handling the spot-fixing scandal that rocked IPL 2013, the SGM is set to unanimously ban Modi from BCCI. "The committee has suggested a life ban and almost everyone is set to back the recommendation," a BCCI official told ESPNcricinfo. "Despite the existing differences, the meeting should get over quite quickly."

SGMs, which strictly discuss a pre-fixed agenda, require a three-fourth mandate for a decision to be ratified. This effectively means that 24 votes would be enough to get Modi banned in a house of 31 votes, including 27 full members, National Cricket Club in Kolkata, Cricket Club of India in Mumbai, All-India Universities and the president's vote.

The rise and fall of Modi

• 2005 - Becomes one of the youngest BCCI vice-presidents
• 2007 - Announces the franchise-based IPL and Champions League T20
• 2008 - The sale of eight IPL franchises fetches more than $720m, and the first season proves immensely popular. Modi becomes the most high-profile cricket official in the world
• 2009 - Modi is defeated in the Rajasthan Cricket Association election but retains his BCCI post as he is also on the board of the Punjab Cricket Association
• 2010 - Modi reveals the new Kochi franchise's share-holding pattern, triggering a set of controversies that lead to his suspension after the third IPL season. He is forced into exile in London
• 2013 - Likely to receive a life ban from the BCCI after a disciplinary committee files its report

Following the revelations of irregularities in the bidding process and ownership patterns of certain franchisees, the BCCI had laid down several charges against Modi and appointed a committee of Jaitley, Amin and then BCCI president Shashank Manohar. Following Modi's charges that Manohar harboured a personal bias against him, an SGM in July 2010 had inducted Scindia into the committee in place of Manohar and also ratified the charges against Modi.

If Modi is handed a life ban at the SGM, his only route back to cricket administration in India will be through the courts.