IPL slur: Bombay High Court dismisses Lalit Modi’s petition

Mumbai : Suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) Lalit Modi suffered a set-back Wednesday after the Bombay High Court dismissed his petition to reconstitute the Disciplinary Committee set up by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to look into the corruption charges levelled against him.

Modi had filed a petition in the High Court asking for the recusal of Arun Jaitley and Chirayu Amin from the Disciplinary Committee on grounds that the trio were biased against him.

BCCI’s chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty said that the disciplinary committee will now go ahead with its hearing in New Delhi.

“We are very happy that the honourable justice did not give any relief to Modi. We will go ahead with the disciplinary committee hearing as planned,” he said. “The hearing is fixed to start at 2 PM today and it will go on,” Shetty added.

The petition was filed by Modi’s lawyer Mehmood Abdi last Thursday and had said that his client had challenged the committee’s order on August 11.

Earlier Tuesday, Modi has asked the BCCI to halt its disciplinary committee proceedings against him till the Bombay High court pronounced its order.

Abdi had said: “The arguments concluded today. Keeping in view the urgency of the matter the court has reserved the judgement to be pronounced tomorrow at 11 am.”

“In view of this development we are requesting BCCI to defer the disciplinary committee proceedings at least till the judgement is pronounced tomorrow because if we succeed the entire proceedings of the disciplinary committee shall be stayed,” Abdi said.

BCCI had rejected his demand for the recusal of Chirayu Amin and Arun Jaitley from the disciplinary panel investigating the charges of financial irregularities against him.

With panel member Jyotiraditya Scindia unable to attend due to illness, the hearing could not be held on Tuesday morning and only started at 6pm in the evening at Scindia’s residence.

The four witnesses in the case – IPL and Champions League Twenty20 CEO S Sundar Raman, who flew down from South Africa, Paul Manning, John Loffhagen and Peter Griffiths, all from England – attended Tuesday’s hearing.

The hearing was also attended by Modi’s counsel Shailesh Mendon, who requested the committee to defer the hearing till Wednesday until when the Bombay High Court order would come out.