New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India today will pronounce its final verdict on 2013 IPL match fixing scandal involving BCCI president-in-exile N Srinivasan. The court will decide whether he acted in conflict of interest by donning the caps of both BCCI chief and IPL team owner.
His son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan has also been named by the Mudgal committee for his role in betting.
A special Bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and Fakir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla would also decide the legal validity of an amendment to rule 6.2.4 incorporated by the Board in February 2008, which enabled BCCI officials to own IPL teams.
The judgement today could formulate accountability standards for ill-managed sports bodies to eliminate nepotism and conflict of interest.
Earlier, the petitioner Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) had sought the ouster of Srinivasan from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on the grounds that he was placed in a "conflict of interest" situation on account of his duties as the head of the apex cricketing body of the country and his interest as owner of CSK.
The petitioner had also sought the termination of CSK following the indictment of Srinivasan's son-in-law and team official Gurunath Meiyappan for betting in the IPL 2013.
Appearing for Srinivasan, senior advocate Kapil Sibal had challenged petitioner CAB and its secretary Aditya Verma to give a single instance where Srinivasan had acted in conflict of interest and caused loss to the board while favouring himself or his team.
The bench also questioned a decision made by IPL governing council to compensate Rs. 13 crores to CSK for an abandoned CLT20 match. "How could you have decided your case? The fact that the money was returned by CSK made no difference to the conflict of interest on your part when the decision was taken," the bench had said.
Sibbal responded by arguing that apart from this single incident there has been no such instances in past eight years of IPL history.
Though Mudgal committee had cleared Srinivasan of betting or any wrongdoing, it had raised serious questions about possible conflict of interest against him.
