Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday asked the Maharashtra government to inform it on Thursday what steps it planned to take over huge amounts of water being used to maintain pitches of cricket grounds for IPL matches in the state. This comes in the wake of severe drought and water shortage in the state.
Terming the use of water to maintain pitches as “criminal wast-age”, the High Court suggested that IPL matches be shifted out of the state. It was hearing a PIL filed by an NGO, Loksatta Movement, challenging the use of 60 lakh litres of water for pitches at three stadiums.
A division bench of Justices V.M. Kanade and M.S. Karnik criticised the BCCI and Maharashtra and Mumbai cricket associations, and said: “People are more important or your IPL matches? How can you be so careless? Who wastes water like this? This is criminal wastage. You know what the condition is in Maharashtra,” the bench observed.
