Lalit Modi, the founder and ex-chairman of the highly lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL), is wanted by Indian law enforcement agencies on cases of financial irregularities and tax evasion dating back to 2010.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) alleged that Modi, acting as the Chairman of IPL Governing Council defrauded it of 753 crore rupees in collusion with officials of the World Sports Group (WSG). WSG had won the IPL overseas media rights contract. WSG Mauritius was unable to find a broadcast partner and it entered into a facilitation agreement (Rs 425 crore) with MSM (Sony) before they won the IPL media rights for Indian sub-continent from BCCI. On discovering this facilitation agreement, the BCCI led by its Honorary Secretary N. Srinivasan red-flagged the deal, called it ‘improper’ and reclaimed the rights. Modi was ousted from BCCI and banned for life. A police complaint was filed on October 13, 2010, by the BCCI, strangely in Chennai even though its headquarter is situated in Mumbai. The case had grabbed a lot of limelight and citizens were expecting that fugitive Lalit Modi would be brought to the country and justice be done, but as per the documents received under the Right to Information (RTI) filed by the author on behalf of The Logical Indian, it is reasonable to conclude that in fact, there is no on-going investigation in this particular case at all.

TN Police, ED, Rejection & Transfers

In May 2010, Modi fled India citing threat to his life from the underworld. On October 13, 2010, Srinivasan lodged a complaint with the Chennai Central Crime Branch (CCB) against Modi and 6 others including Venu Nair, Andrew Georgiou, Seamus O’Brian, Harish Krishnamachar, Kunal Dasgupta and Ajay Verma- all who are either from WSG or MSM or private contractor. The move was seen as piling all misdeeds at Modi’s doorstep even though a Parliamentary Standing Committee had asked for registering of FIR against the then President of BCCI Shashank Manohar and other officials. Modi had said, in relation to his case, that all decisions, including financial decisions, were taken keeping everybody in the loop. It is important to note that N Srinivasan is being probed in a number of cases by the CBI and ED.

In 2012, based on the Chennai Police FIR, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) started a parallel probe in the matter. On August 20, 2015, ED through the CBI requested the INTERPOL or the International Criminal Police Organization to issue a Red-Corner Notice (RCN) against Modi. An RCN is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.

However, on March 28, 2017, INTERPOL rejected ED’s request on the grounds that there is ‘insufficient judicial data’ against Modi and that India needs to file for an extradition request first. It also said that no charges have been established against Modi as yet. Meanwhile, there was no progress in the investigation being conducted by the Chennai Police even after 7 long years. Since the police investigation was far from complete, a formal chargesheet could not have been filed against Modi in any court. And this was the ground on which INTERPOL had rejected ED’s request.

Lalit Modi | Source: Inside Sports

A clearly frustrated and embarrassed ED wrote a strongly worded letter to the Tamil Nadu police blaming them for this rejection. Throughout 2016 and early 2017, the Tamil Nadu Police was under immense pressure from the then ED Director Karnal Singh who wrote to the then Tamil Nadu’s Director General of Police TK Rajendran noting that ‘despite repeated requests, the Central Crime Branch of the Chennai Police had not intimated the progress made in the investigation of the case against Lalit Modi’ and that ‘the inability of the Tamil Nadu Police in logically concluding the investigation of the case is causing embarrassment to the Law Enforcement Agencies’, referring to INTERPOL’s rejection. He also sought to know whether a report possessed by Modi and submitted to the INTERPOL claiming to be an internal report of the Chennai Police that concludes that the case was more civil than criminal in nature, were, in fact, genuine or not and whether an inquiry could be done to find out who leaked them to Modi.

The letter had its effect and on April 01, 2017, the Tamil Nadu DGP transferred the case from CCB Chennai to the Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Department (CB CID). However, on April 17, 2017, the CB CID requested the DGP to obtain the legal opinion of the state prosecutor to establish whether the Tamil Nadu police even has a territorial jurisdiction to investigate the case at all.

After a total 7 years, the Tamil Nadu police on July 13, 2017, declared that they have ‘no territorial jurisdiction’ to investigate the case and that the case should be transferred to the Mumbai Police or the CBI ‘considering the nature, gravity and inter/intrastate ramification and the parallel investigation…