Srinivasan Named In Mudgal Report

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ESPNcricinfo staff

November 14, 2014

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The Supreme Court of India has named four key individuals connected with Indian cricket, including ICC chairman and sidelined BCCI president N Srinivasan, and IPL chief operating officer Sundar Raman, for committing misdemeanours in connection with the 2013 IPL spot-fixing case. The court issued notices to the four who, along with Srinivasan and Raman, include Chennai Super Kings official Gurunath Meiyappan and Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra.

A special bench of the Supreme Court, comprising justice TS Thakur and FM Kalifullah, revealed the names during a hearing that lasted 20 minutes, and said that it would make the Mudgal report available to lawyers on both sides - BCCI/Srinivasan and the Cricket Association of Bihar - so that they can make their arguments when the next hearing takes place on November 24.

The court said they had received the Mudgal committee investigation report, sumbitted in early November, in two parts - one of which featured players and the other which was made up of what Justice Thakur termed "non-playing actors in the drama." The names of three players was inadvertantly taken by the judge before the court ordered their names be withheld.

The four non-playing "actors", comprising cricket officials and IPL owners were however named with Justice Thakur telling counsel that there was "substantial evidence against all four before us". The court had therefore decided to provide them a redacted version of the report, with the player names blacked out, in order to ensure that the four could defend themselves. The four persons named were given four days to file objections against any of the findings in the report pertaining to themselves. While counsel were present for the BCCI and Srinivasan, court notices had been sent to Gurunath, Kundra and Raman, to ensure that they responded in time.

When asked by the BCCI lawyer about the court allowing Srinivasan to contest the BCCI election that was scheduled for November 20, Thakur said, "we cannot give clarity on whether you can contest or not until this matter is disposed of."

The fate of the BCCI AGM and annual general elections, scheduled to take place in Chennai on November 20, is now unknown. BCCI counsel C A Sundaram told the court that they would be postponed, again, for a month.

This specific case dates back to June 2013 when Aditya Verma, secretary of the CAB, raised charges of a conflict of interest in the BCCI's original two-member inquiry panel for the IPL corruption issue. A Bombay High Court ruling later termed the probe panel "illegal". The BCCI and the CAB filed petitions in the Supreme Court against this order, with the CAB contending that the Bombay High Court could have suggested a fresh mechanism to look into the corruption allegations.

The Supreme Court then appointed a three-member committee, headed by former High Court judge Mukul Mudgal and comprising additional solicitor general L Nageswara Rao and Nilay Dutta to conduct an independent inquiry into the allegations of corruption against Meiyappan, India Cements, and Rajasthan Royals team owner Jaipur IPL Cricket Private Ltd, as well as with the larger mandate of allegations around betting and spot-fixing in IPL matches and the involvement of players.