New Delhi: Sitting in faraway Australia, former India captains Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri still found their names cropping up along with those of Krishnamachari Srikkanth and Sourav Ganguly at the ongoing Supreme Court hearings on the Indian Premier League spot-fixing and betting scandal here on Wednesday.
The four were named with two other former India cricketers in a list of those with a conflict of interest submitted to the Court by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The two-member bench reserved its orders on the matter till after the winter break. The revelations came after Justices T.S. Thakur and F.M.I. Kalifulla had on Tuesday asked the BCCI for a list of administrators and players with commercial interests in the IPL and its spin-off, the Champions League T20.
Speaking to NDTV, however, Gavaskar said from Brisbane, “I was not in court today and I am not aware about the nature of the argument. But I must clarify that I am not in any way connected with the BCCI administration. The last administrative post that I had was the chairmanship of the technical committee back in 2008 or ’09. I have not been in any committee since then.
It was on the directive of the honourable Supreme Court that I was appointed the interim chairman of IPL. After that I haven’t had anything to do with BCCI administration.”The court reserved its orders on whether or not BCCI president-in-exile Narayanaswami Srinivasan could contest again for the post as also on whether there was a conflict of interest in Mr Srinivasan owning IPL team Chennai Super Kings through his association with India Cements.
On Wednesday, Mr Srinivasan’s counsel, Mr Kapil Sibal, put forward the argument that commercial interests were not necessarily a conflict of interest as justification for Clause 6.2.4 that allowed BCCI officials to also own IPL and/or CLT20 teams. A verdict on the matter, and on whether the controversial clause should be quashed, is now only likely in the new year. The bench will also decide if a high-powered panel is needed to examine the findings of the Mukul Mudgal probe panel and fix liability and punishment for Mr Srinivasan’s son-in-law, Mr Gurunath Meiyappan, IPL operations chief Sundar Raman and Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra.
BCCI counsel Aryama Sundaram placed before the court a list that included the names of six former India players as either being part of IPL committees, or as support staff with various IPL franchises, or the BCCI itself, even as he argued that there was no need to change Clause 6.2.4 as “the possibility of conflict of interest may not be enough to remove a clause”.
On Ganguly, Mr Sundaram said he was a member of the BCCI technical committee as well as a player of the Pune Warriors franchise and commentator, to which Justices Thakur and Kalifulla asked, “Does Ganguly play? He does not have a stake in the match, who wins or loses, he doesn’t have a commercial interest in the match.”
Similarly, Srikkanth was named as a selector and mentor to Sunrisers Hyderabad without mentioning the fact that he was CSK’s brand ambassador from 2008 to early 2011, while serving as chairman of selectors from September 2008 to September 2012.The court, however, reacted, asking how Srikkanth could be a selector as well as have a role in the IPL. “This is contradicting the BCCI’s stand that IPL records are not used, not considered by selection by selectors at any level.”
Justice Kallifullah pointed out that the BCCI had no procedure to deal with conflict of interest, but “the conflict of interest is very deep-rooted”, while noting that though Mr Srinivasan had done so much for cricket, “ultimately your image is tarnished”.
