Court issues summons to BCCI chief on Lalit Modi's plea

BCCI President N Srinivasan and disciplinary committee members Jyotiraditya Scindia and Arun Jaitley have been issued summons by a Delhi court on a plea by sacked IPL commissioner Lalit Modi seeking to restrain them from going ahead with an inquiry against him on an IPL bidding issue.
Additional District Judge Ruby Alka Gupta has also issued summons to BCCI Administrator Shashank Manohar as also another disciplinary committee member Chirayu Amin on Modi's suit for declaration that the inquiry conducted against him so far is "illegal, null and void and vitiated by fraud".
"Present is a suit for declaration and permanent injunction filed by the plaintiff (Lalit Modi) seeking reliefs against BCCI and member disciplinary committee which is conducting an inquiry against the plaintiff.

"Brief submissions have been heard. Summons be issued to the defendants (BCCI and disciplinary committee members)," the court said in its order on Wednesday and fixed the case for March 2.
Modi, in his plea filed through advocate Mehmood M Abdi, has also sought a declaration from the court that the committee is biased against him and has not conducted the proceedings so far in a fair and transparent manner.
The committee has been conducting the inquiry proceedings against Modi after a complaint was lodged against him on April 16, 2010 by the franchisee of the Kochi IPL team for making public its shareholding pattern, the plea said.

Subsequent to the complaint, a show cause notice was issued on April 24-25, 2010 to Modi, who was also suspended from BCCI's activities pending the inquiry, it said.
Modi has alleged that the inquiry against him was not being conducted in a fair and transparent manner by the committee as a perusal of the proceedings "would show that the records of cross examination of the witnesses have not been properly maintained".
He has also said in his plea that Jaitley and Amin were privy to the allegations made against him by the franchisee of Kochi IPL team and therefore, they should recuse themselves.