The Hindu : Front Page : Reply to BCCI show-cause, High Court asks Dalmiya

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Saturday, Mar 18, 2006

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Front Page

Reply to BCCI show-cause, High Court asks Dalmiya

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed Jagmohan Dalmiya, former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, to reply to the show-cause notice issued by the BCCI for alleged financial irregularities, while setting aside a stay granted by a lower court.

A Division Bench comprising Justices Bhaskar Bhattacharya and P. N. Sinha said the trial judge acted illegally in granting the stay while setting aside the city civil court order of ad-interim injunction on the show-cause notice. There was no lack of authority on the part of the BCCI to issue the show-cause and the lower court should not have granted the stay as the allegation involved a large amount of money.

The Bench, however, granted seven more days to Dalmiya to respond to the February 27 show-cause notice as he approached the trial court on March 8, nine days after the show-cause was issued. BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah had issued the notice, asking Mr. Dalmiya to explain why appropriate action should not be taken against him for alleged irregularities in the financial transactions of PILCOM (Pakistan, India and Lanka Committee for World Cup 1996), which he headed.

Mr. Dalmiya was granted 15 days to reply to the show-cause but the former BCCI president, whose group lost the control of BCCI to the Sharad Pawar-led group in November, last, moved the city civil court. In his written submission, board counsel S. K. Kapoor said the lower court without arriving at a conclusion that Mr. Dalmiya had any prima facie case, had passed the injunction.

In such allegations of serious financial irregularities, the accused could not evade answering a show cause and move court, Mr. Kapoor submitted. The notice was strictly in accordance with the BCCI rules.

Mr. Dalmiya's counsel Mintu Sen said that the show-cause was mala fide and was intended to humiliate him by making false allegations of financial irregularities while he was president of BCCI as also the convener of PILCOM. — PTI

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