Court orders Lalit Modi’s passport to be restored
NEW DELHI, India (AP) — Former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi can return to India after the Delhi High Court asked for his passport to be restored yesterday.
Modi has been living in London since 2010 and his passport was revoked in 2011 for financial irregularities related to the Twenty20 tournament.
However, Modi managed to stay in England since there was no court order asking for his extradition.
The Delhi High Court said Modi’s passport should be restored since materials taken into consideration while revoking his passport were “extraneous and irrelevant”.
But the court did not comment on the cases against him.
Modi stands banned for life by the Board of Control for Cricket in India for rigging IPL auction bids, bullying franchises and selling media rights without proper authorisation.
Modi attempted a dramatic return to cricket administration this year as he won the election for president of the BCCI-affiliated Rajasthan Cricket Association. His election led to a ban on the RCA, which said it had been unable to stop Modi from contesting the polls because of state government rules.
Modi has been a staunch critic of International Cricket Council chairman N Srinivasan, who has been asked to step aside from his post as BCCI president by the Supreme Court until a corruption investigation into the
IPL is completed.
Srinivasan’s role in the corruption scandal is being investigated by a Supreme Court-appointed committee after his son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, was found to be guilty of keeping in touch with illegal bookmakers in initial probes by
Indian police.
Meiyappan was the team principal of Chennai Super Kings franchise, which is owned by the Indian Cement company of which Srinivasan is the managing director.