The Supreme Court also entertained a petition by Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) seeking a fresh panel to inquire into the IPL spot-fixing charges against Srinivasan and his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan. It sought responses from Srinivasan and BCCI on CAB's plea.
During pendency of the inquiry, Srinivasan remained president of the world's richest cricket body even as he handed over the administration of the day-to-day affairs to former board chief Jagmohan Dalmiya.
The BCCI-appointed inquiry panel's clean chit would have allowed Srinivasan to get back in the saddle but the HC judgment short-circuited it.
Srinivasan had immediately moved the SC hoping for succour, but he was refused stay on the HC's judgment forcing him to continue as the board's president-in-exile.
BCCI's counsel CA Sundaram made a desperate attempt for an early hearing. He was ready on Friday to advance final arguments in the case but a bench of Justices AK Patnaik and JS Khehar fixed the hearing for September 11.
Adding to the anxiety in Srinivasan's camp which wanted to settle the issue prior to the BCCI elections which are round the corner, the bench said it was not sure whether the final hearing could take place on September 11 and indicated that it might get deferred further.
In more bad news for Srinivasan and BCCI, the court entertained a petition by CAB seeking appointment of a fresh panel to inquire into the IPL spot-fixing charges.
Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for CAB, requested the court to decide afresh whether the cricket board was a private or a public body given the proliferation of cricket in India and the huge amount of public money it handled by organizing events like IPL T20 tournaments.
CAB alleged that the sole objective of constituting the probe panel in the wake of sensational revelations about the underworld's involvement in the IPL spot-fixing scam was to get a clean chit and quell public demand for Srinivasan's resignation, who in violation of rules was the owner of IPL team Chennai Super Kings and also a BCCI official. It alleged that the rules were modified to suit Srinivasan.
"The fact that the two-member probe commission gave a clean chit, as reported in media, just after one day of hearing reinforces the apprehension of the petitioner that but for the intervention of the Bombay HC, the allegations of betting and spot-fixing would have been swept under the carpet even without a credible report from the probe commission," the CAB said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment