NEW DELHI, MAY 17: Former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Inderjit Singh Bindra on Wednesday lashed out at ex-BCCI chief PM Rungta and vice-president Kamal Morarka for levelling ``fallacious'' charges against him and challenged them to refer the matter to the CBI for a thorough probe.In a statement refuting the charges levelled by Rungta and Morarka and other BCCI functionaries earlier this week, he said Rungta and his associates have used the media forum for purely diversionary tactics aimed at defusing the allegation being made by the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) in its written report to the CBI.Bindra claimed that he had records at his disposal to debunk all the allegations but he would not like do in the interest of probity, high ethical and moral standards and the public stand he had taken on not only being transparent but seen to be so.Since these allegations have been made publicly, he challenged Rungta and Morarka to send these in writing to the CBI for a thorough probe along with the allegations submitted by PCA.Rungta had during a press conference in Mumbai on May 14 made certain allegations against Bindra regarding his fuctioning as the president of the board from 1993 till 1996 and also as the convenor of the Reliance World Cup organising committee in 1987. Similar allegations were made by Morarka and a couple of BCCI fucntionary during a seperate press conference in New Delhi on May 15.Bindra questioned the motive of these former and present BCCI functionaries in raking up the issues in some cases after 13 years and in others between three and four years and levelled counter allegations against Rungta.He charged that Rungta had been involved in numerous scams in the last two decades. Diversion of board's funds and their deposit in a private bank to derive personal benefit, investment of board funds in badla transaction at stock exchange and betting on cricket matches on a large scale are some of them, he added.About Morarka, he said out of a dozen people or so who were present at the press conference only a couple of them made observations and the remaining were mute spectators, but in the written statement words were attributed to each one of them. ``This was more like a puppet show with strings being manipulated by an invisible hand and that explains apparent confusion and incoherence in the statements.''``I do hope, the officials who have raised the issues, have the courage to put them in writing so as to take legal responsibility of the statements they made and subject themselves to legal scrutiny and face the consequences if allegations proved to be false,'' he said.Recalling the 1997 annual general body meeting of the board held in Chennai when some of these allegations had surfaced, the former BCCI chief said that at that time he had categorically stated that these matters alongwith his allegations against some of the office bearers and former office bearers should be referred to the CBI for a probe.The proceedings of the meeting were video-taped as per the order of Madras High Court and the tape should be forwarded to the CBI to enable them to conduct an independent and thorough investigation, he added.``I have enough material to prove that these charges are not only fallacious but are also totally contrary to the record and facts,'' Bindra stressed.BLURBBindra charged that Rungta had been involved in numerous scams in the last two decades. Diversion of board's funds and their deposit in a private bank to derive personal benefit, investment of board funds in badla transaction at stock exchange and betting on cricket matches on a large scale are some of them.
