New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict agreed on a special leave petition filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swami against a Madras High Court verdict rejecting his plea to cancel the suspension of Chennai Super Kings from participating in IPL matches for two years.
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud reserved verdict after hearing Dr Swamy, who submitted that the punishment of ban on CSK was disproportionate to the alleged offence.
The CJI, however, orally observed that according to some that two year ban is not sufficient. Dr Swamy pointed out that there were no serious allegations against either N Srinivasan or against any members of CSK, whereas there were certain allegations against Rajasthan Royals. The two-year ban was illegal, arbitrary and unreasonable, he said.
Dr Swamy in his SLP said he came across certain reports recently against Lalit Modi, former Chairman of the governing Council of IPL, who is now a fugitive from Indian justice system and residing in London. He alleged that Lalit Modi had successfully stage managed and financed a so called public interest litigation filed by Adithya Verma, representing the Cricket Association of Bihar.
He said he was in possession of various communications including authenticated emails which are deeply disturbing because of the alarming attempt by a coterie or informal syndicate, viz CAB, proclaimed offender Lalit Modi, the complicit current ICC President Manohar Sashank and some others in Dubai to dupe the legal fraternity. Together in a conspiracy they had come to the apex court with unclean hands with the sole motive of capturing the game of cricket and particularly destruct the IPL team CSK as well as the entire cricketing structure of the existing BCCI, he said.
Dr Swamy alleged that through proxy litigation Lalit Modi funded the entire expenses of long and costly litigation fought in the Bombay High Court and apex court. He said he had challenged the vitiated order of suspension of CSK from IPL for no fault of the team based on Lodha panel report. He said people of Tamil Nadu and the city of Chennai should not be deprived of their IPL team CSK on the basis of fraudulent litigation.
He said the dubious motive of CAB and Mr Adithya Verma’s motive was to hijack the game not only from the BCCI but from the apex cricketing body ICC itself and start a parallel global cricket structure amenable to the baneful influence of betting mafia of Dubai. As the High Court had dismissed his plea he has filed the present SLP, he said. he prayed for quashing the impugned judgment and an interim stay of all further proceedings pursuant to the auction of IPL teams for the vacant slot.
