MUMBAI, India (AP) Suspended Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi’s official response to the corruption allegations against him was delivered in six large boxes to the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Modi’s lawyer delivered the thousands of pages of documents late Saturday, meeting a deadline which had been extended by five days.
Modi followed it up with a confident posting on Twitter. “It’s best to allow my colleagues time to go thru my reply,” Modi said in a tweet late Saturday.
“We spent weeks putting it,” together. The BCCI is investigating Modi over his involvement in the initial bids for the Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab at the inaugural IPL auctions in 2008, in a broadcast deal and in the awarding of two new IPL franchises last month.
Modi was the powerbroker in establishing the lucrative IPL and then turning it into a multi-billion dollar enterprise, which has led to an explosion of interest in the shortest form of international cricket. Modi’s lawyer Mehmood S. Abdi declined to elaborate on the contents of the six cartons delivered to BCCI Chief Administrator Ratnakar Shetty, but told reporters he was confident that the charges against Modi would be dropped.
“The charges were based on allegations and gossip. BCCI can never prove it.
We are confident that all the charges against Modi will be dropped,” Abdi said. He added: “The reply has been written in simple prose and BCCI president Shashank Manohar, who himself is a lawyer, will need only a few hours to go through it.
” Shetty did not comment on the documents or what the next step in the proceedings was likely to be, saying only that “there is a procedure in the BCCI and the president will follow that.” Modi was initially supposed to answer the corruption allegations by May 10, but was given additional time to reply after he asked the board for additional documents.
Modi has been barred from participating in the operation of the IPL, the BCCI or any of its committees. A vice president of the BCCI, Modi has said his running of the IPL was completely transparent and denied any corruption.
An investigation led by Shetty into IPL records had already shown “a lot of documents missing,” BCCI president Manohar said last month.
Shilpa Shetty offers prayers to Lord Ganesha
Mumbai, Aug 30 (ANI): Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty offered prayers to Lord Ganesha at a makeshift temple here.
Shetty’s beau Raj Kundra, the London-based Indian millionaire, accompanied her.
Responding to the rumours that she will be marrying Kundra later this autumn, she said in a lighter vein that every one would be invited in advance.
“The day I get married I’ll send invitations to all of you (the media persons) and invite you. I will give you a months notice,” she said.
The couple formed a successful business partnership, which includes a 10 million pounds stake in the Rajasthan Royals Twenty20 cricket team and a recently acquired food company.
The 34-year-old actress had become a household name in the United Kingdom after she won the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ in 2007.
The show sparked a huge outcry in Britain and India after housemates made racist comments against her, forcing Channel 4 to apologize.
Soon after her win she had got engaged to the jewellery tycoon. (ANI)