Sahara India Owner Subrata Roy came down "heavily" on the Board of Control for Cricket in India, according to Indranil Basu of the TIMES OF INDIA. Roy said that if the Indian Premier League rulebook was "followed in terminating the contract of Sahara-owned Pune Warriors, why wasn't it invoked" while dealing with Chennai Super Kings Team Principal Gurunath Meiyappan after he was "accused of being part of the betting scandal." The BCCI recently terminated Pune's contract "over non-payment of a bank guarantee" of Rs 170 crore ($31.6M). Roy asked while referring to BCCI President N. Srinivasan, "If the chief of any institution can create and allow such bad example like that of Gurunath, how can a body function independently? After this example, BCCI has lost the right to take action against anyone. Their whims and fancies are more important to them than anything else. God bless BCCI. They have false egos and high-handedness and the Board will realize how big a financial loss it's suffering after Sahara pulls out of team sponsorship." Currently, Sahara pays around Rs 3.34 crore ($542,000) for "every Test, ODI and T20 match" that India plays. Roy said that he was "waiting for the BCCI and IPL bodies to come to the table to figure out a resolution." Roy: "If they would have sat across the table, we would have continued with the Indian team sponsorship." Since that did not happen, Roy declared that the "bank guarantee amount would now be used for social work" (TIMES OF INDIA, 10/29).
