Srinivasan won't give up, ready to sell stake in CSK for BCCI return: Reports

BCCI president in-exile N Srinivasan is not ready to give up yet. According to reports, Srinivasan is keen on contesting for the upcoming BCCI elections and has decided to give up on his Indian Premier League franchisee Chennai Super Kings. The move comes  following the Supreme Court’s directive banning BCCI office bearers to have any commercial interests in the IPL.

According to report in the Indian Express , Srinivasan will sell off his stake in CSK in the next two weeks, and file an affidavit in court, declaring that there is no longer any conflict of interest post the stake sale.

Firstpost had reported earlier that India Cements, of which Srinivasan is the Managing Director and Promoter, recently hived off Chennai Super Kings into a separate entity in anticipation of the court order. The idea behind the demerger was that shares of CSK can be easily sold to any other company if Srinivasan is asked to choose between his BCCI post and CSK ownership. So now if India Cements were to sell off  Chennai Super Kings , Srinivasan would no longer have any commercial interest in the BCCI and could in theory stand for board president.

Reports also said that the sale process could go through quickly as Srinivisan may have already identified a potential buyer. And given that the demerger was approved as early as September 2014, the sale process may not take too much time since several formalities have already been dealt with.

The Court order stated that a person cannot contest elections, “till such time the person concerned holds such commerical interest (in the board) or till the three member committee (probing charges of betting on IPL matches against IPL teams CSK and RR and their officials/owners Meiyappan and Kundra) considers and awards suitable punishment to those liable for the same, whichever is later.”

However, the transition may not be as smooth as expected.

“The argument that Mr Srinivasan owns only 0.14% equity in ICL is of no avail if not totally misleading when we find from the record that his family directly and/or indirectly holds 29.23% of the equity in the India Cements Limited with Mr Srinivasan his wife and daughter as directors on the Board of that company," the Supreme Court verdict had read.