New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday took the Indian cricket board out of N. Srinivasan’s control and directed that legendary former player Sunil Gavaskar will take charge of it for the duration of IPL Season 7 to ensure a fair probe into the spot-fixing and betting scandal of IPL Season 6.
It also ordered that the board’s senior vice-president, Shivlal Yadav, will look after all other affairs of the BCCI. The next hearing will be on April 16, the day IPL-7 begins in the UAE. This arrangement, the court clarified, shall prevail till it delivers its final verdict on the case relating to corruption in the IPL.
Giving some relief to the BCCI, however, a bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, which had on Thursday proposed barring Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals from IPL-7 in the wake of serious allegations of betting and spot fixing allegedly involving officials and players, said on Friday it will not stop any player or team, from playing in this year’s tournament.
The court also asked Sunil Gavaskar to get out of all his contractual obligations with the BCCI for TV commentary, and said he would be compensated for the job of interim president by the BCCI. The bench left it to Mr Gavaskar to decide if the present CEO of IPL, Sundar Raman, can continue in the post.
The Supreme Court ruled that except players and commentators, no staffer of India Cements or its subsidiary or associate companies will participate in any duties or work of the board. The order passed the order after perusing the Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee report that went into betting and spot-fixing charges against CSK and RR players in IPL-6.
The BCCI, meanwhile, vehemently rejected allegations levelled against Indian captain M.S. Dhoni by counsel for the petitioners Harish Salve, who had accused him of “covering up” for Mr Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan. The BCCI counsel told the court that Dhoni had never made a statement that Meiyappan was “just a cricket enthusiast”. The BCCI lawyer said Dhoni had been “wrongly defamed” after Thursday’s proceedings in which “false allegations” were levelled against him.
There was no clarity on what would be the status of Mr Srinivasan, who had last year “stepped aside” in the wake of the betting and match-fixing scandal during IPL-6, when former BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya was briefly made its acting head. Mr Srinivasan’s term, however, is due to end in September 2014 when the BCCI’s annual general meeting is scheduled to take place, when a new chief could be elected.
The BCCI pleaded with the court to allow Mr Srinivasan to hold the post of International Cricket Council chief from July 2014, but the bench refused to pass any order regarding this.
Later, in a statement, the BCCI said Friday’s Supreme Court order was “acceptable” to it, and said it would take necessary steps for its implementation. BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla, welcoming the court’s decision not to suspend CSK and RR from IPL-7, said the order was in the “best interests of the game and cricket fans”. He said: “We have no objection to the Supreme Court order. The BCCI lawyers have also said that the order is acceptable. Even Mr Srinivasan said through his lawyers that he is willing to step aside and after that what the court decides will be acceptable to him.” Mr Shukla then added: “The good thing is that all eight teams will play in this year’s IPL. The IPL will go on and there will be no hindrance.”
