Lalit Modi
Lalit Kumar Modi founded the Indian Premier League, the Twenty20 cricket tournament that grew into one of the biggest sports leagues in the world. He ran it as its first chairman and commissioner for three years, until 2010. Then the Indian cricket board suspended him, and he left for London, where he was labelled a fugitive. Modi denied any wrongdoing and blamed the accusations on political rivalries.
How does the man who built a league lose his place in the sport that made him famous? What did a powerful family name and friendships with politicians have to do with both the rise and the fall? And what did the investigations that followed actually establish?
Lalit Kumar Modi was born in Delhi on the 29th of November 1963, into one of India's leading business families. He was the elder son of Krishan Kumar Modi and Bina Modi. He had an elder sister, Charu Modi Bhartia, and a younger brother, Samir Modi. His grandfather Gujar Mal Modi had established the Modi Group conglomerate and the town of Modinagar. His father, known as KK Modi, expanded the family business greatly.
Modi joined Bishop Cotton School in Shimla in 1971. His family later moved him to St Joseph's College in Nainital because of a kidnapping threat. In 1980 St Joseph's expelled him for truancy, after he left school to watch a movie.
Between 1983 and 1986, Modi studied electrical engineering and business administration in the United States. He spent two years at Pace University in New York and one year at Duke University in North Carolina. He graduated from neither.
In 1985, while a sophomore, Modi and three other students tried to buy half a kilogram of cocaine for 10,000 dollars at a motel. The man posing as a seller threatened them with a shotgun and robbed them of the money. The next day, Modi and his friends beat up a student whom they suspected of setting them up. On the 1st of March 1985, Modi was arrested on charges of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, assault and second-degree kidnapping. He and another student were indicted the following day.
In the Durham County court, Modi pleaded guilty and later entered a plea bargain. It brought a suspended two-year prison sentence, five years of probation and 100 hours of community service. In 1986 he asked the court for permission to return to India, citing bad health. The court accepted his plea and ordered him to perform 200 hours of community service in India. Some of his father's businessmen friends, including Leonard Lauder, helped to arrange his return. Asked about the matter in 2010, Modi said: "I've got no idea about these allegations, which have been investigated and nothing was found."
Modi came back to Delhi in 1986 and joined the family business. From 1987 to 1991 he served as President of International Tobacco Company Limited. On the 21st of August 1989 he became a non-executive director at Godfrey Phillips India, one of the country's largest tobacco companies. It was a joint venture between the family's Modi Enterprises and Philip Morris International. In February 1992 he became an executive director there, a post he kept until the 1st of August 2010.
On the 17th of October 1991, Modi married Minal Sagrani in Mumbai. She was nine years older than him. She was the daughter of the Nigeria-based Sindhi Hindu businessman Pesu Aswani, and the ex-wife of another Nigeria-based businessman, Jack Sagrani. His family opposed the match at first, because Minal was a recently divorced mother. Modi won over his grandmother Dayawati Modi, who then persuaded the rest of the family to agree.
The couple settled in Mumbai, because Minal faced a social boycott in Delhi. They first lived in KK Modi's apartment in the Pedder Road area. Later they bought Minal's father's house in Juhu as their family grew. They had two children, a son named Ruchir and a daughter named Aliya. Modi also had a step-daughter, Karima Sagrani, from Minal's first marriage. Minal died of cancer on the 10th of December 2018. In July 2022 Modi announced that he was dating the former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen. They broke up on the 14th of February 2025.
In 1993, Modi established Modi Entertainment Networks, using money from a family trust. It began as a ten-year joint venture with Walt Disney Pictures to broadcast some Disney programming in India, including Fashion TV. In 1994 the company became the pan-India distributor of ESPN, on a ten-year contract worth 975 million dollars. Modi's job was to collect money from India's cable companies in exchange for carrying the channel.
ESPN did not renew the contract and alleged that he had underreported revenues. The company also lost its Fashion TV contract after Modi fell out with the channel's founder, Michel Adam Lisowski. Most of his Mumbai businesses were unprofitable, and he lived on a maintenance allowance from his father's company. He later became President and managing director of Modi Enterprises, the family's industrial conglomerate. In 2002 he launched an online lottery business in Kerala called Sixo. Alongside these ventures sat a different ambition, which he had first put to cricket's governing body in 1995.
In 1995, Modi pitched a new 50-over tournament to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, known as the BCCI. He had been impressed by the huge revenues of American sports leagues while living in the United States. He even registered a name for the proposed league, Indian Cricket League Limited. The board did not take the proposal seriously, so Modi resolved to join the board himself.
In 1999 he won election to the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association, a constituent body of the BCCI. His attempt to gain control of that association failed, and the state's Chief Minister forced him out. In 2004 he was elected vice-president of the Punjab Cricket Association under its president, Inderjit Singh Bindra. He kept that post in the 2008 elections.
In 2003, Modi's friend Vasundhara Raje was elected Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Modi knew her through a common school friend, Bina Kilachand, and had become one of her closest associates. After his failure in Himachal Pradesh, he turned to the Rajasthan Cricket Association, another constituent body of the BCCI.
The Rungta business family had controlled that association for over three decades. Its voters were 32 district associations plus 66 individual members, all of whom were members or peons of the Rungta household. Several attempts in the 1980s and 1990s to eject the family had failed. Once Raje took office, a faction led by Modi tried again. Modi registered with the association as "Lalit Kumar", a member of the Nagore district's cricket association. He avoided his full name for fear of being denied entry.
In 2005, Modi used his connections with Raje to get the Rajasthan Sports Act passed. The ordinance took voting rights away from the 66 individual members and left only the 32 district associations as voters. Modi was elected president, defeating the incumbent Kishore Rungta by just one vote.
As president, he spent 20 crore rupees to renovate Jaipur's Sawai Mansingh Stadium. He spent another 7 crore rupees on a cricket academy. He sold boundary-rope advertising at 15 lakh rupees a spot, more than double the previous rate. He also ended the practice of giving away free tickets and sold corporate box seats for 125,000 rupees each.
After his win in Rajasthan, Modi helped the Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar defeat Jagmohan Dalmiya in the BCCI presidential election. Modi was then appointed vice-president of the BCCI and became heavily involved in its commercial side. Between 2005 and 2008, the board's revenues rose sevenfold, touching the 1 billion dollar mark.
On the 9th of April 2006, Mike Atherton described Lalit Modi as arguably "the most important cricket administrator in the world today". Two years later, in 2008, Modi was instrumental in launching the Indian Premier League, built around Twenty20 cricket. From 2008 to 2010 he also served as Chairman of the Champions League.
In 2009, Modi engineered the league's move to South Africa. The tournament dates clashed with the Indian general election, and the Union Minister of Home Affairs, P. Chidambaram, could not commit to the security of the event. The IPL grew into a sports league worth over 4 billion dollars. Its commercial success and Modi's control of it led to comparisons with Don King, the boxing promoter, and Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One promoter.
In March 2008, India Today magazine listed Modi among India's 30 most powerful people. In July 2008, Time magazine ranked him 16th in a list of the world's best sports executives. In October 2008, Business Week placed him 19th among 25 powerful global sports figures. In August 2009, Forbes magazine called the IPL "the world's hottest sports league", less than a year after its launch. By February 2010, Sports Illustrated named him the second most powerful person in Indian sports.
Suresh Chellaram, the husband of Modi's sister Kavita, owned a majority share in the Rajasthan Royals franchise. Modi's step-daughter Karima had a husband, Gaurav Burman, who was a stakeholder in Global Cricket Venture. That company won the digital, mobile and internet rights of the IPL. Gaurav's brother Mohit Burman was a stakeholder in Kings XI Punjab. Jay Mehta, a childhood friend of Modi, was one of the owners of Kolkata Knight Riders.
Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders were the cheapest franchises, and their prices were very close. That led to speculation that Modi had passed inside information to the owners. The suspicion would return in the formal charges that the board later brought against him.
At the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, ministers and civil servants once queued to meet Lalit Modi and ask for favours. During Raje's first term as Chief Minister, the opposition and the media called him the "Super Chief Minister". He continued to live in Mumbai, where his network had grown to include leading industrialists and Bollywood stars. He visited Jaipur often.
Modi entered the real estate business through a company called Amer Heritage City Construction Pvt Ltd, where his wife Minal served as a director. He pressured local officials and secured control of two havelis near the Amer Fort, in contravention of rules of the Archaeological Survey of India. He intended to convert them into a heritage resort. Mahant Shiv Prakash Bhattacharya, the 75-year-old titleholder of the Choor Singh ki Haveli, started a court case to block the takeover of his haveli.
During Raje's tenure, the Jaipur Development Authority framed ad-hoc rules allowing agricultural land to be reclassified for non-agricultural use. The change benefited several big builders from Delhi. It was allegedly presided over by Modi.
In 2007, Modi refused to let the IAS officer Mahendra Surana watch a match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, because he believed Surana to be an associate of the Rungta faction. Surana arrived with his friend Hemendra Surana, an army doctor and former Ranji player. Modi tore up their tickets. He did the same to the IPS officer R.P. Srivastava. During another match, he slapped a constable for walking into his box, and the city's constabulary protested.
Modi's growing power became a key issue in the 2008 Rajasthan elections, which Raje lost. Her successor, Ashok Gehlot of the Congress, accused Modi during the campaign of acting as an "extra-constitutional authority". In January 2009, Modi spent several hours at a police station after an FIR was registered on a forgery complaint from a Samajwadi Party activist. In March 2009, his faction lost the Rajasthan Cricket Association election. The new leadership appointed a committee to probe alleged financial irregularities during his time in charge.
In December 2013 the association held fresh elections, but the Supreme Court postponed the results six times because of cases filed by Kishore Rungta and the BCCI. On the 6th of May 2014, Modi was re-elected president while living in London. The BCCI immediately banned the association and installed an ad hoc body to run it. Modi took the legal route to fight that declaration.
On the 9th of March 2015, a group led by Amin Pathan moved a no-confidence motion against him. The law required a quorum of 23, and exactly 23 people attended. Seventeen voted against Modi, one vote in his support was counted, and five votes were discarded as disputed. Twelve more of his supporters were turned away for arriving 10 minutes late. Their vehicles had been stopped, and they were beaten with rods by a mob. Five more votes were discarded as disputed, and Modi was ousted by a controversial 17-1 count. Pathan denied any role in the attack and suggested that Modi's supporters staged it as an excuse for their pending defeat.
In December 2009, Modi inserted two new clauses into the invitation to tender for two new IPL teams. Bidders needed a net worth of at least 1 billion dollars and had to provide a bank guarantee of 100 million dollars. Modi said the clauses protected the BCCI's interests. Other board members claimed he was rigging the bids to suit the Adani Group and the Videocon Group, since the clauses ruled out most other bidders.
After the tender was floated on the 22nd of February 2010, bidders including the Sahara Group and the Jagran Group complained to the BCCI President Shashank Manohar. They said they were being kept out deliberately. Only two bids arrived. The IPL then removed the net worth clause and cut the guarantee to 10 million dollars. By then, suggestions of a rivalry between Modi and N. Srinivasan had also surfaced.
In March 2010, a consortium led by Rendezvous Sports World won the bid for the Kochi Tuskers Kerala franchise. The Congress leader and External Affairs minister Shashi Tharoor had helped bring the companies together. Both Modi and Tharoor said at the time that the minister held no stake and was only helping a team for his native state.
On the 11th of April 2010, as the formal agreement was being signed, Modi asked who held the franchise's sweat equity. By his account, he received "evasive replies" and then a call from Tharoor telling him not to probe. One holder was Sunanda Pushkar, a close friend and later wife of Tharoor. Soon after the signing, Modi named the stakeholders in a tweet and alleged that Pushkar's shares were a hidden gift to Tharoor.
The consortium threatened to sue for breach of confidentiality. It claimed Modi was creating problems because he wanted other bidders to win. Tharoor denied any financial stake and said he had offered only "encouragement, blessings and expert advise". Pushkar said she would give up her stake. Tharoor resigned as a minister amid allegations of corruption.
On the 16th of April 2010, Kochi's representatives complained to the BCCI that Modi had threatened them to give up the franchise. A day after the IPL final on the 24th of April, the board suspended him on 22 charges. They included bypassing the governing council, bid rigging, awarding contracts to friends, accepting kickbacks on a broadcast deal, selling franchises to family members, betting and money laundering.
Soon afterwards Modi moved to London, where his wife Minal's family lived. He hired the law firm Carter-Ruck to fight the charges and sent out defamation notices of his own. He also spent time expanding the family business in Europe. He believed that Srinivasan, who later became BCCI President, had masterminded his ouster. In 2012, Modi alleged that Srinivasan had fixed the 2009 auction of Andrew Flintoff.
India's Enforcement Directorate opened a series of investigations into Modi and other board officials. They covered alleged breaches of foreign exchange law and a payment of 80 million dollars to World Sports Group by Multi Screen Media. Investigators also examined 25 million dollars allegedly routed from that deal to accounts linked to Modi and his associates. Further allegations included telling selected bidders how much to bid in the first team auction in 2008, and buying a corporate jet through a Cayman Islands company.
Modi argued that he was not individually responsible, because the board and its committees took decisions collectively. He refused to return to India, saying his life was under threat. The Mumbai Police backed that claim. They said the underworld figures Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel had sent hitmen to kill Modi and his family on a vacation in Thailand.
In 2010, Modi claimed on Twitter that the New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns had been involved in match-fixing in 2008. In March 2012, Cairns sued successfully for false statements and won 950,000 dollars in damages. In March 2014, Modi alleged that the International Cricket Council held evidence of spot and match-fixing in the Champions League T20 and was deliberately keeping it secret.
In 2013, a BCCI committee led by Arun Jaitley, with Jyotiraditya Scindia and Chirayu Amin as members, found Modi guilty on eight charges. They included adding two onerous clauses to the tender draft without informing the board, which Modi said he had mentioned verbally to Manohar. Others covered threatening the Kochi representatives, favouring World Sports Group on television rights, and failing to disclose his step-daughter's husband's stake in Global Cricket Venture. The committee also cited tweets threatening to expose individuals in the BCCI and a plan for a rival league with clubs in England. The board banned Modi for life.
In March 2010, the Congress-led Indian government revoked Lalit Modi's passport. He challenged the decision in the Delhi High Court, which restored it in August 2014. In June 2015, the British MP Keith Vaz was reported to the parliamentary standards commissioner for lobbying UK immigration officials on Modi's behalf. His correspondence mentioned a recommendation from the Indian minister Sushma Swaraj.
Modi's wife Minal had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008-09 and was being treated in Portugal. In 2014, Swaraj asked British authorities for assistance. British authorities then gave Modi travel documents on the pretext of signing consent for his wife's operation, although Portugal did not require it.
Modi also revealed that on the 25th of August 2011, Vasundhara Raje, then in opposition, signed a document supporting his application to the British authorities. The application was never presented. It carried a secrecy clause saying it should not be revealed to the Indian authorities. In her affidavit, Raje described Modi as a victim of a "political witch hunt" by the Congress.
In 2013, the Jaipur lawyer Poonam Chand Bhandari had filed a public interest litigation in the Delhi High Court. It claimed Modi had transferred millions of rupees, through a shell company, to a company owned by Raje and her son Dushyant Singh. Dushyant Singh owns Niyant Heritage Hotels Private Limited, and Raje holds 3,280 shares in it. In 2008, Modi's company Anand Heritage Hotels gave Niyant an unsecured loan of 38 million. During 2008-09 it also acquired 815 shares, paying 96,000 for each share with a face value of only 10. Niyant, which had a paid-up capital of 1 million, received a total of 116.3 million.
In June 2015, the Congress accused Raje of granting favours to Modi in exchange for the money. The BJP argued that she had acted as a friend of Modi and not as a political leader. Indian media named the controversy "Modigate". Opposition parties accused BJP leaders of shielding Modi, who was wanted in several cases of financial irregularities. His lawyer, Mehmood Abdi, called it political vendetta and said the Congress had hounded Modi since the Tharoor-Pushkar controversy of 2010.
Interpol issued a light blue notice against Modi, meant to lead to his arrest on Indian soil. Yet in June 2015, while attending the El Clasico match in Barcelona, Modi posted an Instagram photo with the former Interpol chief Ronald Noble. In the post he called Noble his "brother". The post drew a media backlash in India. Noble, who headed Interpol from 2000 to 2014, denied knowing of any criminal activities by Modi.
A month later, Indian media released emails exchanged between Modi, Noble and Noble's brother James between the 21st and the 26th of January 2014. They discussed a property worth 365,000 dollars in the United States. Ronald Noble explained that Modi and James Noble had entered a joint venture. Modi would buy the house, James would maintain it at his own expense, and they would split the profits equally on sale. Noble said there was no conflict of interest, because he was not an Interpol employee at the time.
As of 2015, Modi had not been convicted of any charge in the Enforcement Directorate investigation. In March 2025, he claimed that no extradition notice had been issued against him, contrary to some media reports. The Enforcement Directorate had asked Interpol for a global warrant against him. In 2017, after delaying, Interpol rejected the request.
Updated
Common questions
Who is Lalit Modi?
Lalit Kumar Modi, born on the 29th of November 1963, is an Indian businessman and former cricket administrator. He founded the Indian Premier League and was its first chairman and league commissioner. He ran the tournament for three years, until 2010.
What did Lalit Modi do in cricket?
Lalit Modi founded the Indian Premier League in 2008, built around Twenty20 cricket. He was also Chairman of the Champions League from 2008 to 2010 and Vice President of the BCCI from 2005 to 2010. He served as President of the Rajasthan Cricket Association from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2014 to 2015.
Why was Lalit Modi banned from the BCCI?
A BCCI committee led by Arun Jaitley found Lalit Modi guilty on eight charges in 2013, and the board banned him for life. The charges included bid rigging, threatening a Kochi franchise representative and failing to disclose a relative's link to an IPL rights holder. Modi denied wrongdoing and blamed political rivalries.
Why did Lalit Modi move to London?
Lalit Modi moved to London soon after the BCCI suspended him in April 2010, where his wife Minal's family lived. He refused to return to India, saying his life was under threat, and the Mumbai Police endorsed his claim. India's Enforcement Directorate had opened investigations into him over alleged financial irregularities.
What was the Kochi Tuskers Kerala controversy involving Lalit Modi?
In April 2010, Lalit Modi tweeted the names of sweat equity holders in the Kochi Tuskers Kerala franchise, including Sunanda Pushkar, a close friend of the minister Shashi Tharoor. Modi alleged her shares were a hidden gift to Tharoor, who denied any stake but resigned as a minister amid corruption allegations. The Kochi franchise claimed Modi was harassing it because he wanted another group to win.
What is Modigate in the Lalit Modi case?
Modigate is the name Indian media gave to the controversy in 2015 over help given to Lalit Modi by political figures. It involved Sushma Swaraj's recommendation for his UK travel documents and Vasundhara Raje's 2011 document supporting his application to British authorities. The opposition accused BJP leaders of shielding him, and the BJP rejected that.
How did Lalit Modi win control of the Rajasthan Cricket Association?
In 2005, Lalit Modi used his link with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to get the Rajasthan Sports Act passed, which removed voting rights from 66 individual members. He then defeated the incumbent Kishore Rungta by one vote to become president.
All sources
83 references cited across the entry
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- 20Lalit Modi's wife Minal dies. Read tribute penned by former IPL boss11 December 2018
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- 25NewsLalit Modis vision of world domination for Indian Premier LeagueRhys Blakely — 12 March 2010
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- 32NewsFAQs: The Rajasthan Cricket Association election caseNagraj Gollapudi and Amol Karhadkar — ESPN — 5 January 2014
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- 47Mumbai police endorse Lalit Modi's life threat claim2 November 2014
- 49NewsCairns awarded $950,000 for libel27 March 2012
- 51NewsThe BCCI's charges against Lalit ModiESPN — 6 May 2014
- 52NewsEx-IPL chief Modi handed life ban25 September 2013
- 53NewsLalit Modi elected as RCA presidentWill Davies — cricket20 — 6 May 2014
- 54Have evidence to prove Champions League T20 witnessed match-fixing: Lalit ModiSuyash Srivastava — Zee News — 25 March 2014
- 55NewsLalit Modi removed from Rajasthan Cricket AssociationSaibal Bose — 9 March 2015
- 58Raje left to fend for herself in Lalit Modi visa row18 June 2015
- 63ED heat on former directors of Lalit Modi's hotel firm18 June 2015
- 65Modigate: clamour for SIT probe gets louder17 June 2015
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- 80The Global 25Businessweek — 30 September 2008
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- 82NewsThe game changersShyamal Majumdar — Business Standard — 28 December 2009
- 83NewsSachin named most influential person in Indian sports9 March 2010