With match-fixing in sports yet not defined under any law, the Government is contemplating a legislation that can define the offence and provide strict punishment for the guilty.
The Government’s latest move may revive hopes of a possible solution but going by the track record so far, such assurances were always made from time to time but never fulfilled.
law Minister Kapil Sibal spoke to Sports Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday and discussed the “loopholes” currently existing in the system which needed to be plugged immediately.
Realising that the IPl spot-fixing row had threatened to rob the sport of cricket its nobility and genuineness, Sibal discussed legal measures that could be introduced to ensure that players engaging in such corrupt acts do not escape without punishment.
With focus being to restore people’s confidence in sports, particularly cricket which continues to be most popular sport in country, Sibal told reporters “There is no definition of match-fixing in Indian law. We need to define it as an offence. I don’t think offence of cheating (under IPC Section 420) is something that adequately deals with the issue of spot-fixing and match-fixing.”
On his talks with the Sports Minister, Sibal said that the Sports Minister is on board and officials in the law Ministry will begin the task of drafting the law following which a bill will be tabled in the next session of Parliament.
Sibal may be better disposed to handle the situation as he had represented BCCI office bearers against a petition brought by cricketer Ajay Jadeja in the Delhi High Court challenging his five-year ban over allegations of his close links with bookies that later got revoked.
The action had followed one of the worst match-fixing scandals ever to hit Indian cricket after the then South African cricket team captain Hansie Cronje in November 2000 named Mohamad Azharuddin as the person who introduced him to a bookie.
A similar outcry was witnessed in the country even then but no concrete steps were initiated. The then Sports Minister SS Dhindsa even made a statement in the Parliament saying, “The Government will take recourse to all legal measures to ensure that this menace is not only curbed but eliminated.”
Eight years down the line with no system still in place, the Parliament was again alerted on the possibility of huge match fixing in the IPl games with a special mention made by CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta in Parliament on April 29, 2008.
He raised the issue as to how a poor country like India spent Rs 4,000 crore on cricket. He was of the view that with cricket being controlled by big industrial houses, easy money flowing through the hawala route could not be ruled out. This ultimately was affecting the game and name of cricket.
A last attempt to rein in the BCCI and the menace of match-fixing was made in 2010 when the Supreme Court heard a PIl filed by RTI activist Alok Varshney on making the cricket board accountable and to check betting rackets linked to cricket. The IPl became the bone of contention for the PIl to allege involvement of betting mafia linked with the BCCI.
The PIl demanded enactment of a legislation to curb match fixing and requested the Court to consider auditing BCCI accounts by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Unfortunately, the apex court was not convinced as it dismissed the PIl at the admission stage without hearing on merits.