Sahara has to cite relevant agreement clause to pull out: IPL

Bangalore - Indian Premier League (IPL) chief executive Sundar Raman said Saturday that Sahara India can terminate their Pune franchise only after "invoking" the relevant clause in the contract.

"The contract terms are very clear as far as the franchise agreement is concerned, and they need to invoke under the termination clause as per the contract," said Raman during the IPL players' auction here.

Sahara India pulled the plug off its multi-million-dollar team sponsorship with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and also walked out of its IPL franchise Pune Warriors, claiming they have been denied natural justice yet again.

Sahara's decision came hours before the IPL 2012 auction where 144 players went under the hammer here and there was no one from Pune Warriors team bidding.

Taking a dig at Sahara, Raman said the corporate major was trying to bend the rules to suit its needs.

Sahara had requested the IPL management to add Yuvraj Singh's price to its auction purse after the southpaw was ruled out of the tournament with a lung tumour.

"The truth is they had requested flexibility and amendments to the regulations which suited them, and which was, in the opinion of the IPL, unfair to the eight other franchises," Raman said.

"The IPL was not prepared to grant an exception to one franchise to be sitting in the auction room with a much higher purse than every other franchise as that defeats the purpose of the regulation," he said.

Sahara cited several reasons while ending its 11-year-old association with the BCCI, the latest being its request in the IPL auction being turned down.