Supreme Court slams Srinivasan on conflict of interest between BCCI and IPL

New Delhi: The conflict of interest issue returned to haunt cricket control board president-in-exile Narayan-aswami Srinivasan, with the Supreme Court on Monday remarking that no distinction could be made between the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the Indian Premier League, and Mr Srinivasan’s ownership of the Chennai Super Kings.

“Some people who are in the BCCI now own a team. It has become a mutual benefit society. The ownership of team raises conflict of interests. President of BCCI has to run the show but you have a team, which raises questions, and it can’t be wished away,” the two-member bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and P.M. Kalifullah pointed out. The court’s remarks are significant since conflict of interest was not in the ambit of the court-appointed Mudgal Commission, the brief essentially being to go into spot-fixing and betting around the sixth edition of the IPL.

At its much-awaited sitting on Monday afternoon, the court said, “You can’t make a distinction between BCCI and IPL. IPL is a byproduct of BCCI.” It did not buy the BCCI argument that the IPL was a distinct entity and had its own governing body, pointing out that the IPL governing council was a sub-committee of the BCCI.

There was more in store for Mr Srinivasan, who had moved the court to be allowed to resume functioning as BCCI president. “You are only assuming you got a clean chit. You can’t use BCCI rules to say that you will stand for elections, because the doctrine of public trust will apply,” the bench said.