The Volleyball Federation of India and its former secretary Ramavatar Singh Jakhar have suffered a major setback in the Pro Volleyball League case against Baseline Ventures. The document relied upon by the VFI and Jakhar to terminate the company’s Pro Volleyball League contract may now become redundant in the arbitration proceedings.
Jakhar had presented a PwC “confidential” report to the VFI executive to build consensus for terminating the contract. The federation is also relying upon the same report in the arbitral proceedings despite PwC’s categorical statement that the report was a confidential document.
After Jakhar and VFI had failed to withdraw the document from the arbitral proceedings despite being asked to do so, PwC has submitted before the arbitrator that the document cannot be relied upon in the dispute resolution process.
“Confidential report was not for the purpose of any third party. It was not prepared for the purpose of being produced in any dispute resolution process and the same cannot be adduced as an evidence in a third-party dispute resolution process,” states the application submitted to the sole arbitrator by PwC attorneys Clarus Law Associates.
As reported by SportzFront earlier, former VFI secretary Ramavtar Singh Jakhar has presented the “confidential” PwC document to crease the basis for termination of the Baseline Ventures contract. The sports and talent management company had subsequently furnished its accounts duly audited by Deloitte to dismiss claims made by Jakhar.
PwC had earlier asked the VFI to withdraw its “document” from the arbitral proceedings – first in a mail addressed to Jakhar on May 13 and then via a formal legal notice to the VIF ten days later. On Tuesday, the international audit and financial law firm has submitted a formal application to the sole arbitrator to state that the “confidential” document was not meant to be used in the dispute resolutions process.
SportzFront is in possession of the PwC application.
PwC has further highlighted the fact that Jakhar and the VFI had ignored its communications to withdraw the “confidential document” from the dispute resolution process.
PwC has further submitted before the arbitrator that “…production of the confidential report before this Hon’ble Tribunal is in wilful and blatant violation of the agreement between the VFI and PwC”. It further states that the report was based on the information provided by the VFI and was meant for the federations internal consumption and disclosure of the same in the arbitral proceedings was unauthorised.
PwC has also pleaded that the single judge tribunal should not rely on the report to adjudicate in the matter and urged to expunge it from the arbitration records.
The development comes as a huge set back to Jakhar and the VFI in the case against Baseline Ventures.
The sports and talent management company though has already submitted that it was not interested in restoration of its Pro Volleyball League rights. However, its case for compensation of damages would get a huge boost with the PwC submission.
Two days ago Member of Parliament Anil Agarwal, who has been elected the president of one of the two VFI bodies, has written to Justice (Retd) Kannan that Jakhar had not right to represent the federation in the case against Baseline Ventures.
Also read: ‘Jakhar has no mandate to represent VFI in Pro Volleyball case’