Published: Monday, Aug 9, 2010, 2:34 IST
By Harish Gupta | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA
http://www.dnaindia.com/sport/report_more-trouble-modi-gets-ed-show-cause-notice_1420746
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has finally issued a show cause notice to Lalit Modi, the suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman.
While Modi, who has been abroad for several weeks now, was unavailable for comment, his lawyer Mehmood Abdi confirmed that Modi will respond to the ED notice.
Inquiries reveal that Modi has been travelling to Bali, Singapore and other countries and does not intend to return to India soon. The ED acted after questioning officials of the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) extensively.
It has emerged that the BCCI officials found it tough to explain the IPL affairs and claimed that Modi was privy to the information sought as he was running the show virtually independently.
Sources in the ED declined to comment on whether the agency had submitted its interim report to Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who is personally monitoring the investigations. Since the parliament is in session and there was demand for a discussion on the issue, Mukherjee had expected the ED’s report would be helpful in satisfying the parliamentarians.
Reports suggest that of the eight teams, the ED had zeroed on three IPL franchisees whose flow of funds had to be looked into thoroughly.
Though the directorate has collected data on all the franchisees and their owners, it has very little concrete to submit to the government.
The government is also giving such signals. This was reinforced by the statement from Union minister Salman Khurshid who said sometime ago that “there has been nothing so far regarding non-compliance of regulations by any of the eight franchises”.
His statement was completely at variance with what is under investigation by ED and financial investigation unit under the finance minister. Even the Opposition parties have not taken kindly to the statement of Salman Khurshid.
