The Madras High Court Bench here on Monday reserved its orders on a writ petition seeking to restrain Indian cricket team from participating in the Australian series, scheduled to begin on Tuesday, until fool proof measures were taken to prevent freak injuries such as the one that took the life of Australian cricketer Phillip Joel Hughes.
Justice M. Venugopal deferred his verdict, without mentioning a date, after hearing elaborate arguments advanced by the petitioner’s counsel W. Peter Ramesh Kumar and Assistant Solicitor General (ASG) G.R. Swaminathan appearing on behalf of the Union Ministry of Youth Welfare and Sports. No one represented the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
K. Praveen Kumar (24), a cricket enthusiast from Pudukottai district, had filed the writ petition. He contended that it was the duty of the Centre to safeguard the life and limb of Indian cricket players in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act, 1993, when there was every possibility of injuries sustained in the sport turning fatal.
“The only question to be decided in this case is whether human rights are valuable equally to animal rights or not. When this court can ban ‘jallikattu,’ a bull taming sport, in order to prevent harming of animals, why cannot it interfere in cricket and stop loss of lives due to injuries. The BCCI is a private charitable trust and it cannot be allowed to administer a national team,” his counsel said.
On his part, the ASG urged the court to dismiss the case on the ground that the petitioner’s prayer was in the nature of a public interest litigation and hence he should have approached the Division Bench and not a single judge. He also pointed out that the petitioner had not made any representation to the Centre before filing the writ petition.
