Supreme Court dismisses BCCI petition

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an application from the BCCI seeking review of the January 22 verdict quashing Rule 6.2.4 of the IPL Rules allowing administrators like N. Srinivasan, former board chief, to have commercial interests in breach or conflict with the duty they owed to the BCCI.

A bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and Ibrahim Kalifulla dismissed the application holding that there are no grounds to interfere in the January 22 judgment which also restrained Srinivasan from contesting for the post of BCCI president as long as he owned Chennai Super Kings.

In its review the Board maintained that the court cannot interfere in the internal working of the BCCI and further it cannot go into the policy matters governing the game of cricket.

Under Rule 6.2.4 an administrator cannot either acquire or hold any commercial interest in any BCCI event including IPL, Champions league and T20 matches. The court had said “As treasurer of BCCI at the relevant time Mr Srinivasan was an administrator who could neither acquire nor hold any commercial interest in any BCCI event including IPL, Champions League & Twenty20 tournaments as all these tournaments are BCCI events.

“But this rule was amended in 2008 to enable even administrators to have commercial interest. Acc-ordingly he became the owner of CSK through his India Cements as well as BCCI President.”

The court, while declaring this rule as illegal, had said “inasmuch as the amendment permitted a conflict between administrator’s duty and his commercial interest, it fell foul of the concept of fairness, transparency and probity in the discharge of public functions by the BCCI and its administrators.

“This enabling provision disregards the potential conflict of interest which will arise between an administrator’s duty as a functionary of the BCCI on the one hand and his interest as the holder of commercial interest on the other.”