Supreme Court to hear Lalit Modi’s plea Oct 20

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Thursday said it will hear Oct 20 suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi’s petition challenging the Indian cricket board’s action against him, including initiation of disciplinary action.

An apex court bench of Justice J.M. Panchal and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra deferred the hearing after it was told that the Bombay High Court verdict rejecting Modi’s same plea was not available before the court.

In his petition, Modi sought a restraint on a panel the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) appointed to probe charges of irregularities against him.

Modi said in his petition that he could not expect fair findings from the disciplinary committee as its members were party to the decision to hold the inquiry against him.

The three members of the committee are: interim chairman of IPL Chirayu Amin, Arun Jaitley and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

The suspended IPL head challenged the high court order by which it dismissed his plea for the reconstitution of the committee.

Modi contended that since the committee members were bound by the decision they had consented to, they could not be free from an inherent bias.

Modi is facing the probe for a number of charges, including financial irregularities in rigging bids in the award of IPL franchise. One of the charges against Modi was that he held proxy stakes in one of the IPL franchisee.

In his plea before the high court, Modi challenged his suspension and said the inquiry against him was “motivated and baseless”.

The former IPL chief said that at the instance of BCCI secretary N. Srinivasan, the board launched a prosecution against him on the basis of media reports.