The Board of Control for Cricket in India on Sunday said legality of the Memorandum of Understanding between India and Pakistan cricket boards needs to be ascertained before it responds to a legal notice sent by Pakistan Cricket Board for not honouring the MoU between the two countries.
Asked what will be the Indian board’s response to the legal notice claiming damages of approximately Rs 440 crore sent by PCB, acting BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary said, “It was just a letter from BCCI. It's not a formal contract as yet.”
The MoU was signed by the then BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel in Dubai in 2014 when N. Srinivasan was the ICC chairman as well as India’s representative in the ICC board.
Choudhary invoked the government permission rule for playing a bilateral series against Pakistan while defending India’s inability to play the arch rivals. “I can assure you this is a subject on which government has to accord permission. BCCI had already written to government in March 2017 regarding Future Tours Programme (FTP). So unless we get permission from them I cant make a comment.”
Interestingly, no one in BCCI is really privy to the so called MoU. This MoU came into being after BCCI under Srinivasan promised PCB it will play a bilateral series on home and away basis for next five years with Pakistan. However, the Indian government has not given permission for the same since 2012 when Pakistan came to India for a one day series. The Indian government is extremely cagey about allowing India to play Pakistan in a neutral country.
Former BCCI president Shashank Manohar had to reportedly request PCB to furnish a copy of it as none in BCCI had access to it.
