Trouble again for Tharoor

Rendezvous alleges breach of trust by Lalit Modi

A. Vinod

HIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The controversy over the ownership of the Kochi IPL consortium seemed to assume the scale of a bitter war on Tuesday, with team franchisee Rendezvous Sports World filing a complaint with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), alleging breach of trust by IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit K. Modi.

“It is unfortunate to note that Mr. Modi himself has disclosed various vital aspects of the contract on Monday evening,” the complaint, written by co-owner of the franchise Vivek Venugopal to BCCI president Shashank Manohar, said.

The letter said:

“Information disclosed include shareholding pattern of the consortium as well as shareholding patterns of various participating consortium member companies. Please note that Mr. Modi has not disclosed such information for the other nine teams participating in the league. In addition, we have been seeing various remarks by Mr. Modi questioning the capability and the intentions of this consortium.

“As a consortium, we have abided by the terms and conditions of the bid document and franchise agreement in letter and in spirit. Behaviour and actions as conducted by Mr. Modi brings complete disrespect to the sport, the IPL league, as well as to the sanctity of the bidding process.”

The letter, which cited the confidentiality clause in the franchise agreement, sought Mr. Manohar's immediate intervention. “On behalf of the consortium, I sincerely request you to immediately instruct Mr. Modi to retract his statements… and apologise for the communications given in the media. We, as a consortium, are also contemplating legal action against Mr. Modi for his irresponsible behaviour, which brings disrepute to his office,” it said.

Modi's tweet

On Monday, within the space of 17 minutes, Mr. Modi used popular social networking platform Twitter to reveal details, including the stock options held by the members of the consortium that won the bid for the Kochi franchise of the IPL at the March 21 auction in Chennai.

He started with the tweet, “A lot of you are asking about the shareholders and events surrounding the Kochi team. I am compiling a note shortly and will put out a press release soon.”

He went on to add: “Twenty five per cent of Kochi team is given free to Rendezvous Sports for life. The same equity is non-dilutable in perpetuity. What does that mean? Why? Wait.” He then tweeted again: “Will disclose those details soon.”

Who are shareholders?

Keeping his promise, he then quite dramatically wrote: “Who are the shareholders of Rendezvous? And why have they been given this 100s of million dollars bonanza? Kochi shareholders are Rendezvous 25 per cent [free]; Rendezvous 1 per cent; Anchor 27 per cent; Parinee 26 per cent; Film Waves Combine 12 per cent; Anand Shyam 8 per cent; Vivek Venugopal 1 per cent.”

He went on to reveal more: “Rendezvous free equity – held by Kisan, Shailendra and Pushpa Gaikwad, Sunanda Pushkar, Puja Gulati, Jayant Kotalwar, Vishnu Prasad, Sundip Agarwal.”

Minutes later, Mr. Modi tweeted again in reply to a query from a fellow tweeter. “A big? I was told by him not to get into who owns Rendezvous. Especially Sunanda Pushkar. Why? The same has been minuted in my records.”

I disagree with team franchisee Rendezvous Sports World that Modi did a grave injustice in disclosing the names of the persons behind the deal. We income tax payers have to declare the source of all our money but these people who prepare crores and crores should not be asked just as the FII who bring hordes of money are not asked. If we ask, they will not come and then how will the share market rise or IPL spend trillions.

I suggest all these big money deals be more transparent and the persons behind the deal should be known.

Our Shashi attracts trouble like a bait attracts fish and just as a fish get pierced by the hook, Shashi too gets pierced.
I wonder whether it has anything to do with the weather or does the river Ganga have this effect.
Now Shashi seemed comparatively honest while he was in the USA slogging away at his desk in the UN but as soon as he lands in India he is accused in one case after another. It must be the river Ganga for the states through which the river passes are the most corrupt, UP and Bihar. This does not mean the other rivers do not have the same corruptible effect. We know for sure that Punjab and Haryana are just behind UP and Bihar in the corruptible index. But then we should not blame the poor rivers.They are inanimate objects which are defiled by mankind, although we worship them. I suppose it is their proximity to Delhi which is the corruption capital of India.
Have you noticed that Delhi does not have anything but the fuel prices and everything else is the least expensive in Delhi? Why?
Because they collect money from the rest of India and spend it as they want and lecture the others on fiscal discipline.
I would suggest that the Capital of India be shifted every 10 years to the 5 metros. I know it is a crazy idea but then we have to do crazy things to bring some discipline to these crazy Dehlites who think themselves gods and expect the whole of India to continue financing their crimes.