The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear an application filed by the Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) seeking to restrain N. Srinivasan from contesting for the post of president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) at the annual general meeting to be held on September 29.
A three-judge Bench headed by Justice A.K. Patnaik posted the matter for hearing on Friday on a mention made by senior counsel Nalini Chidambaram seeking urgent listing of the application in view of the BCCI meeting.
The CAB also sought an interim injunction to restrain the BCCI from inducting Mr. Srinivasan into any of its committees as a Member or in any other capacity and from permitting him to participate in the September 29 proceedings in any capacity.
The CAB filed this application in a pending special leave petition filed by it against a judgment of the Bombay High Court which quashed the Justice Jayarama Chouta probe panel’s findings. The appeal was to the limited extent that the High Court did not grant the consequential relief of constituting a panel comprising retired judges to conduct an enquiry under the monitoring of the High Court into the complaint of betting and spot fixing by the team owners of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals or to direct the BCCI to await the Final Report of the Mumbai and Delhi Police investigation into the said allegations.
The Supreme Court, while entertaining the BCCI’s appeal against the same High Court judgment, had declined to stay its operation. The judgment declared as illegal and unconstitutional the two-member commission appointed to probe into allegations of spot fixing and betting in IPL season VI.
The BCCI had faulted the High Court judgment on the ground that it ignored a provision in BCCI rules that gave it prerogative to set up such a probe panel. It said that during the June 10 meeting of the BCCI working committee DDCA representative on the committee Arun Jaitley had said there was no need for nominating the third member on the probe panel. The said working committee meeting was held following the resignation of Sanjay Jagdale as the cricketing body’s secretary.
