N K P Salve, who was a Union minister and Board of Control for Cricket in India president, and five former cricketers, including Kapil Dev and Madan Lal, have filed a public interest litigation petition in the Delhi high court challenging the International Cricket Council's contracts for the World Cup.
The contracts were challenged on the ground that even though 80 per cent of ICC funds are generated in India, the world body has imposed stringent and unreasonable conditions on Indian players to participate in the World Cup.
Seeking a direction to the government not to release the tax benefits to the sponsors, and another to ICC to sort out the issue amicably, the petitioners said it is necessary for the betterment of the game.
A division bench of the court, comprising acting Chief Justice Devinder Gupta and Justice B D Ahmed, on Friday issued notices to the Centre, the ICC and its marketing arm ICC Development International, the Indian board, the Reserve Bank of India and six sponsoring companies on the petition.
The notice was issued to the RBI because the money is sent to the ICC through it. Others made respondents in the case are Pepsi, Hero Honda, LG, Nimbus Communications, TVS Motors, Coca-Cola, Sahara India Financial Corporation and Samsung.
All the respondents were directed to file their replies by January 21.