New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday stalled an attempt by the BCCI to have a new body set up to probe allegations of corruption in the Indian Premier League and accepted the Mudgal Committee’s deadline of four months to hand in its completed report.
Justice Mudgal, the former Punjab and Haryana High Court chief justice on the day sought to empanel further personnel on his committee including former CBI special director M.L. Sharma and a former cricketer besides senior police officers from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
The probe panel said it would also seek the assistance of the Sports Integrity Unit of the Anti-Corruption Branch of the CBI and any other agency or department of Central and state governments as and when required, who could be entrusted with suitable investigative powers as the Court saw fit.
A final condition tabled by Justice Mudgal was that they wanted “full cooperation of the BCCI” during the investigation, including directions to abide by instructions, if any, issued by the panel. The commission held that all those working in and assisting the investigation, should “exercise their duties with utmost confidentiality” and act as officers of the court.
It is possibly the penultimate condition — besides the reported exclusion of Niloy Dutta, seen as the BCCI’s man on the probe committee — that led the cricket board to raise its objections to the continuation of the Mudgal Committee continuing its working. The Supreme Court also said that the next hearing of the case would only be in September, after the Mudgal Committee had completed its investigation.
Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court had asked Mudgal if he would resume his probe after the BCCI had come up with its own three-member panel to look into the IPL corruption issue. The Board’s suggestion though did not find favour with the Justice A.K. Patnaik-headed bench over conflict of interest issues.
