More skeletons could tumble out of the murky Indian Premier league. The Supreme Court has rejected the three-member panel proposed by the BCCI and is set to entrust Justice Mukul Mudgal yet again with the responsibility of further probe into match-fixing and betting allegations against 12 leading Indian cricketers.
It was the panel headed by Justice Mudgal, which had drawn out the list of 13 people including BCCI president N Srinivasan, for acts of commission and omission over match-fixing charges as reported to it by other players, stakeholders and persons associated with cricket.
Adjourning the case to April 29, the bench of Justices AK Patnaik and FM Ibrahim Kalifulla asked senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam, who appeared for the Mudgal panel, to indicate the jurist’s willingness to head the probe and also suggest choice of agency or officers required by the panel to investigate the matter.
IPl scam: SC asks Mudgal to take up probe
later in an interview to a TV channel, Justice Mudgal expressed his willingness to continue with the probe.In the meantime, the bench allowed the request of BCCI and N Srinivasan to be given access to content of statements given to the Mudgal panel on allegations against BCCI president N Srinivasan, IPl chief operating officer Sundar Raman and Indian captain MS Dhoni, who were accused of giving false testimony to the committee on the role played by Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan in affairs of IPl and Chennai Super Kings, the team owned by Srinivasan’s business interest India Cements.
lawyers representing BCCI and Srinivasan were allowed to hear the recording to be arranged by the SC Secretary General and place their defence in the court next Tuesday. The court, however, warned of initiating contempt action against the BCCI and its president if any part of the confidential tapes got leaked.
The court directed the Mudgal panel to submit to the SC Secretary General audio recordings of the committee’s proceedings held between November 5, 2013 and January 6, 2014.The Mudgal panel, comprising senior lawyers lN Rao and Nilay Dutta, had submitted its report in three volumes with the fourth report in sealed cover wherein it disclosed names of 13 persons having similar charges against them. As the committee lacked investigation powers, it stopped at naming the persons.
Once faced with the names, the apex court had asked the BCCI to suggest the names for a probe panel. The BCCI constituted a panel comprising former CBI Director RK Raghavan, former judge JN Patel and cricketer Ravi Shastri to enquire into the matter. But the Cricket Association of Bihar, which had dragged the BCCI to court over its handling of the IPl betting probe, vehemently opposed citing conflict of interest. This forced the bench to give Justice Mudgal panel a second chance.
Currently, Srinivasan has been asked to step down as BCCI president as the court has replaced him with seasoned cricketer Sunil Gavaskar as regards IPl and senior vice-president Shivlal Yadav with regard to daily functioning of BCCI.