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Indian Premier League cricket franchise Rajasthan Royals’ majority owner on Wednesday accused his former co-owner of trying to blackmail him by alleging he was defrauded out of his minority stake in the club.<\/p>\n
London-based venture capitalist Manoj Badale and his company Emerging Media Ventures are suing businessman Raj Kundra at London’s High Court for allegedly breaching a 2019 confidential settlement agreement.<\/p>\n
The case centres on Kundra’s former shares in Rajasthan Royals, winner of 2008’s inaugural IPL which is now cricket’s richest tournament with a brand value of $12 billion.<\/p>\n
Badale’s lawyer Adam Speker said Kundra, who is married to Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, had threatened to report serious allegations<\/strong> to Indian authorities in a “blackmail attempt”.<\/p>\nKundra, however, says he has been told information about the claimants and his lawyer William McCormick that, if that is not true, “in due course it will be exposed”.<\/p>\n
Kundra had to forfeit his 11.7% stake after being found guilty in 2015 of betting on IPL games in a scandal which led to the Rajasthan Royals being suspended for two years, Speker said.<\/p>\n
He added in court filings that Kundra emailed Badale “out of the blue” last month, alleging he had been “misled and defrauded of the rightful value of my 11.7% stake”.<\/p>\n
The email to Badale said Kundra had filed a complaint with Indian authorities and threatened to make a report to India’s Cricket Board (BCCI).<\/p>\n
Kundra added, however, that he was willing to discuss a deal involving “the restoration of my original equity or compensation reflecting the true and current valuation of the Rajasthan Royals franchise”.<\/p>\n
Speker said Kundra also messaged disgraced IPL founder Lalit Modi this month, saying Badale “did not realise cheating me of the true value would cost him dearly”.<\/p>\n
Badale and his Emerging Media Ventures, which holds a 65% stake in Rajasthan Royals, obtained an interim injunction against Kundra on May 30, preventing Kundra from breaching the settlement agreement by making disparaging statements.<\/p>\n
Kundra’s lawyer McCormick said Kundra accepted the injunction should continue until a full trial of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
“It is not an admission that anything improper has been done or is being threatened,” McCormick said.<\/p>\n
– Ends<\/p>\n
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Published By: <\/p>\n
Akshay Ramesh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Published On: <\/p>\n
Jun 25, 2025<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Indian Premier League cricket franchise Rajasthan Royals’ majority owner on Wednesday accused his former co-owner of trying to blackmail him by alleging he was defrauded out of his minority stake in the club. London-based venture capitalist Manoj Badale and his company Emerging Media Ventures are suing businessman Raj Kundra at London’s High Court for allegedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/echo.grabonic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/businessman-raj-kundra-184822160-16x9.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}