Supreme Court notice to cricket board on IPL franchise

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Tuesday issued notice to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on its former president A.C. Muthiah’s plea related to award of an Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise to the owner of the Chennai Super Kings T20 cricket team.

Muthiah has sought permission to file additional documents in support of his suit challenging the award of the franchise to India Cements Ltd.

While Muthiah is a former BCCI president, the present BCCI Secretary, N. Srinivasan, is the CEO of India Cements Ltd.

Muthiah has moved the apex court pointing out that there was a conflict of interest in Srinivasan’s role as BCCI secretary and CEO of India Cements.

The documents sought to be submitted by Muthiah include details of the IPL governing council meeting Aug 11, 2009 which clearly indicated that Srinivasan, as the BCCI secretary, was actively involved in the cash-rich League’s decision-making process.

When senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Muthiah, referred to the additional documents they wanted to be admitted, the apex court bench of Justice J.M. Panchal and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra told him that they will have to go back to the Madras High Court.

The court said that it could not take on record documents that were not there before the high court, whose impugned orders were being challenged before it.

While Jethmalani said that he would argue the case even without the assistance of these documents, senior counsel Nalini Chidambaram said that these documents did not affect the merit of the impugned order as the high court had dismissed Muthiah’s petition on the issue of locus standi itself.

Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati told the court that the application by which they want the additional documents to be admitted was not even numbered. He told the court that he got the copy of the application in the morning itself.

Thereafter, the court issued notice. The matter would come up for hearing Aug 26.

Muthia has petitioned that the award of IPL franchise to India Cements was in violation of the BCCI rules which forbid its office bearers from creating interest in IPL franchisees.

Subsequently, the BCCI changed this rule which too has been challenged in the apex court.