Bombay High Court-appointed arbitrator Justice B N Srikrishna today stayed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) decision to terminate the Rajasthan Royals contract with the Indian Premier League (IPL) for six weeks. He held that prima facie, the termination of contract by the BCCI was “illegal”.
A decision on the Kings XI Punjab petition against its expulsion from IPL is expected to be announced tomorrow. The directive could derail the fourth edition of the IPL. The BCCI had earlier made it clear that only eight teams would participate in the tournament scheduled to commence on April 8, 2011. With the players’ auction slated to be held on January 8-9, questions now loom over the number of teams likely to take part in the auction and eventually participate in the league.
Rajasthan Royals had filed an appeal before the High Court against the BCCI on October 25 for suspending it from the T-20 cricket league. The Rajasthan Royals’ franchise was terminated by BCCI on October 10 after the Board alleged irregularities in the franchise.
A statement issued by RR executives last month said: “We have tried to meet the BCCI to understand the basis for the termination, which was received without notice. We do not understand what we have done wrong. It is, therefore, our duty to IPL fans, our employees, our players and our partners to pursue the matter. The matter is expected to be listed this Wednesday (October 27). We would not like to state anything further, since it is sub judice.”
Rajasthan Royals, along with Kings XI Punjab, was expelled from the IPL for alleged violations of rules. After the Board had decided to terminate the contract of Rajasthan Royals, BCCI President Shashank Manohar had said: “They had a different bidder during auctions. The agreement was entered in the name of a different company. The shareholding patterns were different and, then, the shares were transferred to different people without the permission of the governing council.”
The Rajasthan Royals franchise is owned by Emerging Media group and is chaired by Manoj Badale. Other investors include Lachlan Murdoch, Aditya S Chellaram and Suresh Chellaram. The franchise was acquired in 2008 for $67 million (nearly Rs300 crore in today’s terms). Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and her husband, Raj Kundra, had paid approximately $15.4 million (over Rs68 crore today) for a stake of around 12 per cent in the franchise before the start of IPL II in early 2009. Shetty had said: “The only change to ownership was the introduction of my husband Raj Kundra, for which we had full BCCI permission and support at the time. Allegation that our ownership has changed since 2008 is untrue.” Suresh Chellaram is the brother-in-law of former IPL chairman Lalit Modi. Earlier in October, after the expulsion of the franchisee, Manohar had denied that the action to terminate the franchise agreements had anything to do with Modi’s connection with Rajasthan Royals. The IPL governing council is slated to meet in Nagpur on Sunday to discuss the future of the Kochi franchise, which has submitted documents to clarify the ownership structure of the team.