NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday turned the heat on BCCI suspended president N Srinivasan and Chennai Super Kings, the IPL franchise owned by Srinivasan’s India Cement, by saying that the team should be disqualified from IPL without any further inquiry and raising doubts about Srinivasan returning as the Board chief.
It asked the BCCI if it was open to having a fresh election without the participation of its suspended president N Srinivasan and letting the new team take action on the findings of the Mudgal Committee on the IPL betting scandal. If action is to be taken against CSK, action is likely to follow against Rajasthan Royals too whose team owner, Raj Kundra, has been caught betting in the IPL.
Though the BCCI suggested that it could set up a disciplinary committee to penalize those indicted by the Mudgal Committee, the apex court said that for such a mechanism to be “above bias” and “legally valid”, a new board should be elected keeping out the parties involved in the IPL case.
As the conflict of interest is becoming increasingly “obvious”, the bench comprising Justices T S Thakur and F M Ibrahim Kalifullah told the existing cricket regime to explain the basis on which it was making a distinction between Srinivasan and the Rs 400 crore investment made by his company India Cements in CSK. Observing that the distinction was “getting to a vanishing point, the bench said that CSK could be “terminated without further inquiry” in the light of Mudgal’s findings on Srinivasan and his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan.
Since the BCCI has conceded that Meiyappan was, as held by Mudgal, a “team official” of CSK, the court put the onus on Srinivasan to come clean on his share holding pattern in India Cements and in turn in the IPL team. It even suggested that Srinivasan and others named in the Mudgal report should not attend the BCCI annual general meeting scheduled for December 17.
“In the face of so many irregularities, why can’t the BCCI act according to it rules and disqualify CSK?” the bench asked. “What is more valuable to Mr Srinivasan? Is it his office or his team?” It also expressed concern about the “dual role” of M S Dhoni as captain of CSK and vice president of India Cements.
These stinging observations came from the court in the course of the arguments made by Harish Salve, counsel for the petitioner, Cricket Association of Bihar. The counsel for Srinivasan, Kapil Sibal, and the counsel for the BCCI, C A Sundaram, are due to respond separately on Monday. This is a far cry from the plea made earlier Srinivasan that he should be reinstated in the wake of the last Mudgal report. The court turned the tables on him questioning his assumption he had been given a clean chit.
The bench made it clear that rather than going just by the final report of the Mudgal Committee, it would give equal weight to the interim report which was more scathing about the conduct of CSK and Rajasthan Royals in the 2013 IPL season. While Srinivasan has been claiming that India Cements was the real owner of CSK, he has controlling interest in the company. The court will also give its decision on the plea that the names of the cricketers mentioned in the Mudgal report be made public.
TOI | Nov 28, 2014
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