BCCI suspends RCA after Lalit Modi elected chief

The election was conducted in December last year but the results were sealed following a Supreme Court directive

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Former Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi, in exile, was on Tuesday elected the president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA), prompting the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to suspend the RCA.

Modi, slapped with a life ban by the BCCI, swept the polls (24 of 33 votes in favour) after the Supreme Court cleared the decks for the announcement of the result, about four months after the polls.

The result was announced by court-appointed observer N M Kasliwal here on Tuesday. The announcement is expected to trigger another legal tussle between Modi and BCCI.

Rampal Sharma got five votes. In a few hours of the declaration, the BCCI indefinitely suspended RCA and decided to form a panel to run its affairs.

RCA vowed to challenge the ban. "We would appeal in the high court," said Mehmood M Abdi, the newly-elected vice-president and Modi's lawyer. "We are governed by the Rajasthan Sports Act, whereas BCCI is just a registered body. We shall raise the matter on all possible forums, apart from fighting it in court."

The 50-year-old Modi, in London for four years, was allowed to contest the elections on December 19 under the supervision of a Supreme Court-appointed observer.

Among other office-bearers, Somendra Tiwari was elected the new secretary while Pawan Goyal won the treasurer's post. Abdi, a confidante of Modi, has been elected the deputy president.

"Modi will be running RCA through his executive panel," Abdi said.

Modi was slapped with a life ban by the BCCI on September 25 after its disciplinary panel found him guilty on eight charges of "indiscipline and misconduct".

After Modi entered the fray in the elections, BCCI challenged the Sports Act, which allowed the former IPL chief to contest the polls.

Modi's re-election is being seen as a massive blow to N Srinivasan, who has been criticised severely by the discarded administrator on several occasions. The BCCI disciplinary committee, comprising Arun Jaitley, and Jyotiraditya Scindia, had submitted a 134-page report in July, 2013, in which it had found Modi guilty of financial irregularities, indiscipline and "actions detrimental to the interest of the BCCI". Later last year, the apex court made its retired judge Justice Kasliwal a principal observer to oversee the RCA elections. The elections had become contentious because Modi was in the fray for the president-ship.