Citing its ongoing dispute with Sahara, the potential litigation and past defaults in payment as the reasons, the BCCI refused to accept Sahara's bid. That meant Star India Pvt Ltd - the only other bidder in the fray - won the rights to sponsor the Indian team without any competition.
Sahara is crying foul over the way the BCCI carried out the entire bidding process and accused it of favouring Star India Pvt Ltd. "They (BCCI) simply wanted to ridicule us and give it to Star. They have not only devalued the deal but have done it by cheating us. They themselves are saying we've never defaulted on any team sponsorship payment and there is no dispute, then how did they find us ineligible?" Sahara spokesperson Abhijit Sarkar said.
Sahara had bought the tender document from the BCCI for Rs 2 lakh on Saturday at around 2pm. Their representatives arrived in Chennai on Monday afternoon to bid for the rights.
After submitting their bid just before the 3 pm deadline, along with Star, BCCI officials requested the officials of both bidders to step out so that the technicality of the bids could be ascertained.
The board officials studied the technical bid first and when both parties were called inside, Sahara was told - in the presence of BCCI president N Srinivasan - that its bid was ineligible.
Sahara demanded to know why it was allowed to buy the tender document in the first place if the board had already decided to declare them ineligible.
To this, a BCCI official countered that just because somebody buys an admission form for a school he or she is not guaranteed admission. He said that thorough background checks are necessary.
The former team sponsor further argued that despite 'commercial' disputes following the termination of its IPL franchise, it had continue to pay the board as team sponsor (for one series), with Team India sporting its logo in the series against West Indies and even against South Africa in the ongoing series.
To this, a senior BCCI lawyer stated that just though Sahara had defaulted in making its IPL payments, the team sponsorship agreement would run its course till December 31 as all payments had been made.
Senior BCCI lawyer PS Raman also told TOI that the "tender document clearly states that if a party is a known defaulter or involved in litigations with the board, it will be ineligible".
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