How Lalit Modi pulled Vasundhara Raje strings in Jaipur’s cricket stadium

Soon after taking over as the RCA president, Lalit Modi, in a letter dated August 31, 2005, wrote to the Rajasthan State Sports Council seeking the South Pavilion, first floor of the West Pavilion, empty piece of land on the northeastern side of the stadium exclusively for a period of four years for “renovation and refurbishment of the stadium by making large investments to bring it upto truly international standards”.

He stated that “the stadium had the potential to become one of the finest venues for international one day and test matches for cricket and could generate vast resources for RCA leading to a much greater interest in sports in Rajasthan”.

Four months later, the MoU was signed on December 30, 2005 between the Rajasthan State Sports Council and RCA. It was agreed that the RCA would develop infrastructure facilities for imparting training and other facilities to cricketers of Rajasthan, develop and maintain South Pavilion to international standards, incur all recurring and non-recurring expenditure on development, renovation and refurbishment entirely from RCA resources.

It was also agreed that the RCA would ensure that the playfield and premises were used exclusively and only for coaching/training of players, never for any non-sporting purpose. The RCA was to pay to the Council a match fee to be mutually determined whenever a domestic or international match/fixture was played, and revenue from advertisements was to be shared between the Council and RCA in the ratio of 1:3.

The MoU would have expired on December 31, 2009 but was renewed 29 months in advance on August 8, 2007.

In continuation of the first MoU, another two were signed. One to develop infrastructure facilities for imparting training and other facilities to cricketers of Rajasthan, develop and maintain facilities in South, North and East Pavilions to highest standards. This would last for five years until July 21, 2012.

The other MoU entered on August 3, 2007 was for a period of 16 years until July 21, 2023 to develop and maintain facilities in the RCA Academy and Sports Centre and to prepare and submit a detailed plan to develop infrastructure facilities for imparting training and other facilities to cricketers of Rajasthan and other sportsmen.

Asked why the MoU was renewed out of turn, U D Khan, who had signed the two new MoUs as Secretary of the Rajasthan State Sports Council in August 2007, said: “It is an old case. I cannot recall anything from it. Such MoUs keep happening. I am unable to recall anything from such an old file.” He said he could not recall the financial dues of the RCA too.

The SMS Stadium, as a venue for a number of national and international cricket matches including the IPL matches, turned out to be a high revenue-earning source. But the RCA did not pay the Council as agreed upon in the MoUs.

Following a meeting on September 27, 2010 between the RCA and Sports Council, the latter shot off a letter to RCA seeking dues of Rs 4.27 crore. Not only was this letter ignored but the RCA continued to be a defaulter till the expiry of the MoU in 2012 — by then a Congress government was in power in the state.

Due to the stalemate between the two bodies, cricket matches stopped being held at the stadium and a PIL was filed in the High Court.
On February 4, 2013, then chief secretary C K Mathew told the High Court in the ongoing case that “after the expiry of the MoU on July 21, 2012, the underlying differences between RCA and Rajasthan Sports Council came fully to the forefront as a result of which there have been serious disputes affecting the conduct of cricket matches. Consequently a PIL was filed on January 30, 2013. The dispute led to financial and economic loss to the state.

“It was argued that an estimate of the amounts payable by RCA to the Council has been prepared amounting to Rs 29.30 crore for the period up to to July 2012. This includes dues of prior period of Rs 3.60 crore and Rs 13.60 crore for utilization of the space within the Stadium calculated as per PWD norms. In addition, the Council has estimated payable dues at the rate of Rs 2 crore per match for 6 IPL matches held recently, thus totalling Rs 12 crore. Against this, only Rs 21 lakh has been paid so far, leaving a balance of over Rs 29 crore which is still outstanding,” an affidavit filed by Mathew in court stated.