Lalit Modi's lawyer on Saturday lashed out at Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Shashank Manohar for calling the suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman a "liar" and said that he should stop defending Board secretary N Srinivasan and take action instead.
"Very unfortunate to hear such an intemperate expression by BCCI president Shashank Manohar calling Lalit Modi a liar, whereas he has not said anything," Modi's lawyer Mehmood Abdi said.
Earlier in the day, BCCI threw its weight behind secretary N Srinivasan and rejected Modi's allegations that the senior official fixed the 2009 players' auction.
BCCI president Manohar told reporters after the Working Committee meeting in Mumbai that Modi's accusations against Srinivasan, who owns the Chennai Super Kings team, are "blatant lies".
"I can produce papers which prove that the charges levelled by Mr Modi against Mr Srinivasan are blatant lies," Manohar said.
According to Abdi, the BCCI, in defending Srinivasan, was practising double standards as a similar accusation made by English and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Giles Clarke was reason enough for it to issue a showcause notice to Modi.
"Its the trail of e-mails which speak for themselves. If BCCI disputed them they should confront it at an appropriate forum instead of denying the existence of any such mails summarily. This shows the double standards followed by BCCI -- one for Modi and the other for BCCI secretary N Srinivasan," he said.
"Board issued a showcause notice to Lalit Modi only on basis of an e-mail by ECB Chairman Giles Clarke. Now a trail of e-mails indicating some kind of irregularities in player auction (2009) vis-a-vis Board secretary and his franchisee Chennai Super Kings, instead of refuting the existence of any such e-mails, it was expected of Board president Shashank Manohar to take cognisance of the matter and issue a showcause notice to Mr N Srinivasan," Abdi said.
"I wonder whether the Board is a Cricket Board or an anti-Modi trust defending the India Cements Board (of which Srinivasan is the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director)," he added.
A television channel had claimed that Srinivasan, in connivance with Modi, tried to fix the bid for Flintoff in Super Kings' favour.
The channel had quoted an e-mail purportedly written by Modi to Srinivasan, which read "what a nightmare to convince them not to terminate (Sohail) Tanvir and also not to take Flintoff. (Shane) Warne went off the handle. But have managed it by using stick and carrot strategy. Thus they have US$ 1.875 million. Much love Lalit".
