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NEW DELHI: Indian police have opened a case against sacked Indian Premier League supremo Lalit Modi, who is implicated in an alleged 106-million-dollar scam, a report said Thursday.
The Hindu newspaper said that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Wednesday lodged a complaint with police over the misappropriation of funds amounting to 4.68 billion rupees during IPL events.
The newspaper said police in the southern city of Chennai, where the BCCI is based, had registered a case against Modi and six others “on charges including criminal conspiracy, cheating and falsification of accounts.”
Under Indian law, this is the first step of a police investigation, which will lead to the accusations being probed by police and legal experts. Charges and prosecution will follow if evidence is found of wrongdoing.
In more trouble for Modi, the Enforcement Directorate, an investigative branch of the finance ministry, has initiated a process to get his passport revoked, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Official sources told PTI that the directorate, which is investigating Modi’s alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, had written to the Mumbai Passport Office to revoke Modi’s passport as he was not cooperating.
Modi, who denies all allegations against him and has vowed to fight to clear his name, is in Britain and has said he is available for questioning in London.
“The move to get Modi’s passport revoked has been made following non-cooperation,” a source was quoted as saying by PTI.
Modi, the brash driving force behind the money-spinning IPL, was removed as the chairman of the tournament, as vice president of the BCCI and as head of the BCCI marketing committee last month.
Shortly after the conclusion of the third edition of the wildly popular tournament earlier this year, during which Modi partied with players and presented the winning trophy, his fortunes reversed dramatically.
He was suspended as IPL chairman following allegations of corruption, indiscipline and money-laundering – all of which he denies.
His troubles began when he revealed the ownership details of a new franchise set to join the tournament next year.
This embarrassed a high-profile member of the government, junior foreign minister Shashi Tharoor, because Tharoor’s then-girlfriend and now wife had been given a free stake in the new team. —AFP
