Interview

To news overview © Sam Bloxham / Formula E

Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds has called for the ongoing legal case in Hyderabad to be "resolved quickly and fairly" to improve the chances of a return to India.

A dispute over the cancelled 2024 Hyderabad E-Prix is still ongoing, although it does not directly involve the all-electric series.

According to Dodds, FE had a "robust contract" in place, which was broken by the local government in Telangana.

The local authorities failed to fulfil the host city arrangement after a new local government was elected ahead of the event.

Following the cancellation of the race, an investigation began at the start of this year after a First Information Report (FIR) was registered over the alleged illegal release of funds for the FE event.

The most recent update is that the Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau has decided to re-interrogate the Indian political party, Bharat Rashtra Samithi and its working president, KT Rama Rao.

Rao and two others are accused of being involved in the illegal release of the funds, reportedly to Formula E Operations. The race's cancellation was a major blow for FE following on from its first event in 2023.

"Without saying too much, there's a case going on in Hyderabad, but not a case against us," Dodds told RacingNews365 in an exclusive interview.

"First of all, if you go back to that, that was a massively disappointing situation for us. We had a contract in place to put on a race, and they withdrew from the contract, so we were left without a race at very late notice.

"There are now allegations within Hyderabad itself, and the state of Telangana, about the process that was followed on their side for that, so hopefully they'll resolve that quickly."

Dodds is keen for the complicated case to be resolved soon in the correct manner, with the ongoing situation further harming the chances of FE ever returning to India, something the CEO is keen for in the future.

"We still have ambitions to be racing in India, and negative press and PR around the process over there, it's not particularly helpful for us," continued Dodds.

"We would rather it was resolved quickly and fairly but from our side, we're absolutely crystal clear that we had a robust contract in place with Hyderabad to go there and race, and they breached it so they didn't go ahead."

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