New Delhi, Nov 15: N Srinivasan, the ICC chairman and BCCI president-in-exile, Indian Premier League CEO Sundar Raman, Srinivasan's son-in-law and Chennai Super Kings team principal Gurunath Meiyappan, Raj Kundra, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals, and three international cricket players are among those that India's Supreme Court has disclosed as having been probed by the Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee into illegal activity in the IPL.
Interestingly, Justice TS Thakur on Friday said that reports regarding players being withheld for the time being but that the names of the three players were released inadvertently, thinking that they were non-players.
Six names are yet to be revealed and the next hearing will be on November 24. The SC has ordered that the misdemeanours and activities of all non-players in the probe be named public. Aditya Verma, the Cricket Association of Bihar chief and petitioner into the spot-fixing and betting case, told reporters outside the SC that information about five big names has been held back as per the court's direction. The officials named now have four days to file objections to the SC.
The apex court has told the BCCI that it cannot hold elections until these issues are addressed, the result of which is that the elections have been pushed back until January.
The SC was set to see the details on November 10 but was informed by Raju Ramchandran, representing the Mudgal committee, that the sealed envelope report ran in 30 pages wherein no individuals are named but codes are used. Apparently the court wanted to see the report in detail before beginning the hearing of the concerned parties.
The SC has said the Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee report on its investigation into 13 persons, submitted at the beginning of the month, includes mention of misdemeanors (by officials) which cannot be held back. The extent of their roles have not been discussed in court yet. The will take some time to reach lawyers/parties. Supreme Court has ordered certain parts be blacked out before registry makes it available.
SC adds cricketers (refers to individuals as I1 I2 I3) should be left out ambit of discussion for now.
This comes nearly six months after the SC asked IPS officer BB Mishra and the police departments of Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai to assist the investigation into the corruption scandal. The SC empowered the probe panel to carry out search and seize but refrained it from making any arrest on its own. In April, the SC dealt a severe blow to the BCCI when it rejected a three-member committee selected by the board to investigate the IPL spot-fixing and betting charges. The court then said if the Mudgal committee that conducted an initial probe into the allegations is willing, it would hand over further investigation to the same panel.
In early September, the SC had given the Mudgal Committee two months to finish its investigation IPL betting and match-fixing controversy. The committee had submitted its interim report to the apex court on August 29.
The IPL spot-fixing scandal broke out during the 2013 IPL when India fast bowler Sreesanth, along with two other Rajasthan Royals players Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan and 11 bookies, were arrested for alleged spot-fixing in the tournament. The contracts of the tainted players were terminated by their franchise, which also lodged a criminal complaint against them. It snowballed into a crisis for the BCCI when Meiyappan was arrested on charges of betting on May 26, 2013.
An internal probe panel, originally comprising former judges T Jayaram Chouta and R Balasubramanian and the then BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale, was constituted on May 28 to investigate the allegations against Meiyappan, who maintained his innocence after getting bail. Srinivasan, who owns the CSK franchise, remained defiant through the turmoil and refused to resign but had to step aside as BCCI president after a stormy emergent board meeting on June 2 where Dalmiya took charge of an interim arrangement to run the board's affairs pending the inquiry. The upheaval led to the resignations of board secretary Sanjay Jagdale and treasurer Ajay Shirke, who asked for Srinivasan's resignation on moral grounds.
Srinivasan, 68, had on June 2, 2013 decide to temporarily step aside from his position as BCCI president after Meiyappan was arrested for allegedly betting in the IPL.
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