Published On:Friday, October 12, 2012
Posted by abg man
Deccan Chargers declare sale, HC says time's up, over to arbitrator
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MUMBAI: Deccan Chargers' struggle to stay on at the IPL crease received another setback after the Bombay high court refused to grant the franchise any more extension after its deadline for furnishing a Rs 100-crore bank guarantee to BCCI expired at 5pm on Friday.
Justice SJ Kathawalla refused the extension despite the team owners' last-minute scramble to bring in a new buyer and attempts to ask for time till Monday. However, the Chargers team cannot be terminated by the Board of Control of Cricket in India just yet.
That's because the court-appointed arbitrator - retired Supreme Court judge CK Thakkar - held his first meeting later in the day and passed a status quo order. This means the stay on BCCI's termination notice to Chargers continues. On October 1, the HC had stayed the termination and asked the franchisee to furnish the bank guarantee.
On a day of dramatic developments, DCHL informed the bourses early in the day that its board of directors had met on Thursday and resolved to sell Deccan Chargers to little-known Mumbai-based realty firm Kamla Landmarc Real Estate Holdings Pvt Ltd, promoted by Ramesh Jain.
The company said that the resolution was subject to the approval of the company's shareholders, the authorities concerned, lenders and other third parties and that its vice-chairman, T Vinayak Ravi Reddy, had written to the National Stock Exchange of India Limited on Tuesday explaining its decision.
According to sources, though Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited claimed to have brought in a new buyer on Friday it could not go ahead with the deal because its own lending banks refused to back it. DCHL had also wanted to change the payment of bank guarantee (Rs 100 crore) from nationalized banks to a private consortium of banks led by ICICI.
BCCI's counsel objected after DC's counsel sought another extension till next Monday for submitting the bank guarantee saying that "some negotiations were on to sell the team".
BCCI had terminated the contract with DC in August citing 'irremediable breaches" of terms of agreement after which DCHL took BCCI to court over the "illegal" termination. The HC had appointed the arbitrator to look into the validity of the BCCI termination notice, giving it three months to resolve the issue.
BCCI has now filed an appeal against Justice Kathawalla's order appointing the arbitrator. The appeal is expected to come up for hearing on Monday before a two-judge bench.
The cricket board has challenged the order as Justice Kathawalla held that "BCCI had at all stages acted in some haste in terminating the franchise agreement with DCHL". The HC in its October 1 order had said that "though BCCI had after issuing the termination notice on September 14 said it was granting time to DCHL to cure the defects, it did not wait."
DCHL had sought and received a three-day extension beyond the 10 days originally given by the court to furnish the bank guarantee from nationalized banks to BCCI for the sixth season of the IPL that will begin next year.
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