The Supreme Court has barred N Srinivasan, the controversial businessman and cricket official, from contesting the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) election until he gives up his commercial interest in the IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings (CSK). The judgement also puts a cloud of uncertainty over Srinivasan’s position as chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Twenty months after the IPL betting and spot-fixing scam was exposed, the Supreme Court also set up a committee of former judges to decide on the punishment for the CSK and Rajasthan Royals (RR), whose officials Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra were found guilty of betting in IPL 2013. The judges committee comprises three retired Supreme Court judges. It comprises former Chief Justice RM Lodha and Justices Ashok Bhan and RV Raveendran. The committee has been asked to finish its proceedings as as early as possible, within a period of six months. The two-member bench of Justices TS Thakur and FMI Kalufulla said that the election for the new office-bearers of the BCCI should be held within six weeks, “subject to the condition that no one who has any commercial interest in the BCCI events (including Mr. N. Srinivasan) shall be eligible for contesting the elections for any post whatsoever”. This committee would also examine those aspects of the BCCI constitution which were deemed problematic. In the 138-page judgement, the SC has made very significant rulings that will have far-reaching consequences. The court struck down the controversial amendment to Rule 6.2.4 of the BCCI’s constitution. This rule was changed to allow Srinivasan (or any other BCCI official) to buy an IPL team or a stake in it in 2008, and the court today declared that this amendment is “void and ineffective”. The judgement observed: “Suffice it to say that amendment to Rule 6.2.4 is the true villain in the situation at hand. It is the amendment which attempts to validate what was on the date of the award of the franchise invalid...” The BCCI had argued that conflict of interest was a “reality of life” and is sometimes unavoidable, but the court observed that allowing this “violates a fundamental tenet of law that no one can be a judge in his own cause”. The judgement went into what it termed “three real-life situations” in which Srinivasan’s position as a BCCI official and the CSK team-owner was in a position of conflict, and observed that “it was unnecessary to delve further to discover conflict of interest”. Another significant ruling of the court is that the while the BCCI may not be the “State” as defined by the Constitution, it does discharge public functions and thus is “amenable to writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India”. The court added: “The natural corollary flowing from that finding is that all actions which the BCCI takes while discharging such public functions are open to scrutiny by the Courts in exercise of their powers under Article 226 of the Constitution.” The BCCI has always insisted that it is a private society and not open to public scrutiny, but today’s judgement demolished that defence.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 01:48:49 +0000
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