The Supreme Court on Wednesday quizzed the BCCI on how it had allowed former India captain K. Srikkanth to be a national team selector when he was already a mentor for an IPL team.
The Court’s queries came in response to BCCI counsel C. Aryama Sundaram’s list of names of persons who would be affected by the Supreme Court's view of what makes “conflict of interest” including K. Srikkanth.
Mr. Sundaram responded that he was primarily a national team selector, and his employment as mentor came later. He contended that even the Indian cricket captain, a player in an IPL team, was also a member of the national team selection committee. In such cases, the assumption is that he would promote talent in national interest.
“Otherwise they will be missing an opportunity. Why cannot we have someone make commercial benefits and at the same time have an IPL team benefit from his professional expertise?” Mr. Sundaram asked.
The Bench disagreed with the BCCI's list which qualified the interest of cricket greats like Mr. Gavaskar in the IPL as purely “commercial”.
Justice Thakur said there is a “basic difference” between the “professional interest” of those like Mr. Gavaskar in the IPL and the “commercial interest” of those who had paid Rs. 500 crore to have their teams play in the IPL.
“How are they affected by the win or loss of a team in an IPL match? These are experts who have professional interest only. They are employed as mentors, commentators, etc. A commentator is totally dispassionate. He has no interest in the fate of a match. His commentary educates and helps to keep the interest in the match alive,” Justice Thakur observed.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for Mr. Srinivasan, submitted that the “world of cricket changed because of the BCCI in the past 10 years”.
“Betting did not start in cricket after 6.2.4. Match-fixing was going on much before 6.2.4 as early as in the 1990s,” he submitted, adding that IPL was “so structured to eliminate the possibilities of conflict of interest”.
