Supreme Court notice to BCCI, Srinivasan on IPL fixing probe

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, N Srinivasan, his company India Cements which owns IPL team Chennai Super Kings, and Rajasthan Royals on a plea challenging Bombay high court order refusing to appoint a fresh committee to probe the spot-fixing scam in the sixth edition of the IPL.

A bench headed by Justice A K Patnaik agreed to hear the appeal filed by Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) against the high court verdict and clubbed it with the petition of BCCI which had challenged the judgement declaring as illegal the Indian cricket board's two-member probe panel set up to look into spot-fixing and betting charges in the Indian Premier League.

The CAB pleaded that the high court which declared the panel of two judges unconstitutional should have appointed a fresh panel to look into the issue.

The cross appeal filed by the BCCI and CAB will be heard by the apex court on September 11.

The apex court had earlier on August 7 refused to grant interim stay on high court verdict, derailing the plan of Srinivasan to return as the BCCI chief.

He had stepped aside from discharging his duties as BCCI president in the light of spot-fixing and betting scandal which allegedly involved his son-in-law and Chennai Super
Kings team's former principal Gurunath Meiyappan.

- Why BCCI's IPL spot-fixing probe panel was declared 'illegal'

The high court order had come on July 30 just two days after the panel, comprising two former judges of the Madras high court Justices T Jayarama Chouta and R Balasubramanian, submitted its report giving a clean chit to all those against whom the probe was conducted.

The panel had gone into the charges against India Cements Ltd, owners of IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings, Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI's president-in-exile N Srinivasan and Raj Kundra, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals.

The panel was set up by BCCI and IPL Governing Council after surfacing of the betting and fixing scandal.

In a blow to BCCI and its president-in-exile Srinivasan, the high court in its July 30 order held that the two-member panel was constituted in violation of the rules framed by the
BCCI.

"The (probe) Commission was not duly constituted and was contrary to and in violation of the provisions of Rules 2.2 and 3 of Section 6 of the Operational Rules (of BCCI)," the high court had said and also rejected Srinivisan's plea for a stay on its order to enable him move a higher court in appeal.

Photograph: Arko Datta/Reuters