N Srinivasan is such a dude! 

That he went to court, claiming the Mudgal Commission had vindicated him and demanding that he be reinstated as board president and further, be allowed to contest elections, was no surprise. 

The real kicker lay in a little codicil that went unnoticed (emphasis mine): 

Srinivasan also asked the court to re-instate the officials from India Cements who were part of various sub-committees at the BCCI. 

Read that again. Then ask yourself this: Why were officials from India Cements, a private company, embedded in “various sub-committees” in the BCCI, which is not, appearances to the contrary, a sister concern of the cement firm? 

Check out his actual words: 

“Now, that the Report (Mudgal) has been filed and no adverse findings have been made as against this Respondent (India Cements) or its employees, it is just and proper that the employees of this Respondent be permitted to discharge their duties if any assigned to them by the BCCI." 

N Srinivasan’s serial conflicts of interest have been discussed in every conceivable forum, including the highest court of the land.

So what does he do? He goes to the Supreme Court and, in as many words, demands that his employees – people who work for him and for the company he owns – be reinstated in the BCCI. 

Like I said – such a dude. 

Does anyone remember the name Prasanna Kannan? Of course you don’t – in this era of instant sensation, who can be bothered with even the recent past? 

As aide memoire, I’m quoting (with mild edits) from my own post, dated January 20, 2011:

A story that merits attention slipped under the collective radar. Remember when a Parliamentary Committee decided to question the BCCI honchos about foreign exchange violations and other skulduggery? Questions were asked about the source of funding of some IPL teams, and also about various foreign exchange transactions relating to the IPL edition held in South Africa.

The BCCI’s defense was the classic SODDIT (Some Other Dude Did It). And the sod they said did it was  Lalit Modi. (This move prompted Revenue Secretary Sunil Mitra to inform the Yashwant Sinha-led committee that for all legal and tax purposes, the IPL was a subset of the BCCI and that therefore the BCCI was responsible for any and all decisions taken by the IPL).

Turns out, even such distinctions are unnecessary. While we were distracted with the national team selection and the SA ODI, CNN-IBN broke a story that received surprisingly little attention in the media. This one.

Never mind that the source of our very own mini-wikileaks is fairly obvious, what the released documents (Here’s the cache) indicate is fairly obvious: N Srinivasan’s (Earlier post: The Cat in the Hats) fingerprints are all over the thing.

#BCCI President Shashank Manohar was formally authorized to take, on behalf of the BCCI, the final decision on the venue.

#The payment process for the SA edition of the IPL was detailed by N Srinivasan, who signed the agreement with CSA.

#N Srinivasan approved, and signed off on, all payments, transfers of funds, etc.

An under-reported story is the extent to which N Srinivasan’s insidious control over the Board extends. (For example: An India Cements employee is chairman of the national selectors — in fact, the first chairman after a rule change that ensured that the selection committee would not be changed after each board election — and also brand ambassador of the franchise that is owned by India Cements. A sports management agency owned by the CSK skipper represents, among others, India Cements. And so on. Tug on any thread you see before you, and it unravels endlessly.)

In continuation of that theme, consider this clip:

Every case for approval was made by Prasanna Kanan who was the CFO of IPL and otherwise an India Cements employee seconded to BCCI. He reported all expenses to N Srinivasan who approved them. No money was paid except after go ahead by N Srinivasan who controlled the entire expenses.

That is to say, the Chief Financial Officer in “Modi’s IPL” was an India Cements employee “seconded to” the BCCI.

Srinivasan wants the Supreme Court to reinstate Prasanna Kannan. In other words, Srinivasan isn’t satisfied with the control he already has over the board – he wants to go back in time, to the halcyon days when his employee was controlling the board’s finances.

And it is not just one employee. As per Srinivasan himself – he wants the court to reinstate India Cements officials, plural, in sub-committees, plural. 

Such. A. Dude!

(Image courtesy livemint.com)