Jaipur, Apr 8: A single judge bench of Rajasthan High Court on Thursday issued show cause notice to state administration for not charging any fee from the IPL authorities after they proposed to hold seven cricket matches at state-run Sawai Man Singh Stadium here.
Justice M N noted that according to the rules the stadium cannot be alloted for any activity other than sports and organising national functions like Independence and Republic day etc.
The judge passed the order on a petition filed by one Rajender Singh.
In his petition Singh said the Indian Premiere League is organising seven cricket matches for its season four in the SMS stadium and the same is under supervision of Rajasthan Sports Council and Rajasthan Cricket Academy.
“SMS stadium is a state level stadium where other sports activities are also conducted for the common man, but owing to the IPL matches all the sports persons are prevented to utilise the stadium for any other activities,” said Piyush Nag counsel for the petitioner.
“The stadium has been put for the disposal of IPL which is a commercial entrepreneurship and cannot be allowed to earn money at the cost of public at large,” he said.
The petition said that Rs two lakh per match were required to be charged from the IPL hosts as fee for using the stadium besides Rs 20,000 per day as fee for holding the stadium for pre-preparations and Rs 4000 per hour is required to be paid for usage of flood lightings and electricity, but the IPL has not paid a single penny before the allotment of the stadium.
Taking a serious note of the matter the judge said, “A commercial activity in the name of cricket is being allowed in the SMS stadium and despite there being prescribed charges/fee the same has not been collected as such the state is put to notice to respond to the query of the court within a period of two weeks.”
The court then issued show cause notices to Secretary, State Department of Sports and Youth Affairs, Secretary RCA, Rajasthan State Sports Council and Commissioner, IPL. PTI
