Top court does well by cricket

The Supreme Court has expressed it has no confidence in the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s ability to run a fair and independent probe into the IPL spot- and match-fixing and betting scandals. Its action in shooting down the proposed panel of three members reveals that it has seen through the BCCI ruse of wishing to “control” the probe of the shady goings on in the IPL. The judges have done cricket a signal service in asking Justice Mudgal, whose committee had exposed thoroughly the corrupt underbelly of the game, whether he would carry out the investigation. 

 

un-Supported Media

Ex BCCI president N. Srinivasan. (Photo: File/DC archives)

 

The BCCI has only itself to blame for getting deeper into the morass. The court had been exceptionally charitable previously in allowing the board to propose names and get down to transparently probing the league, that too after it had been pointed out by the lawyers of the petitioner, the Cricket Association of Bihar, that a two-judge probe ordered earlier by the BCCI appeared to have been stage-managed to the extent a quick verdict pronounced all innocent and said the game could go on as though nothing had happened.

 

In trying to repeat the same trick in proposing a retired cricketer who is a commentator on BCCI’s annual payroll, a retired CBI chief with ties to the home association of president-in-exile N. Srinivasan, and a retired high court judge related to the interim board president, Shivlal Yadav, the BCCI left itself open to ridicule in front of the top court. Already admonished for not taking the charges against a dozen cricketers and the president seriously enough, the board was being too clever by half in proposing such a panel.

 

To have expected more of the BCCI with its one-point agenda of propping up its president because he showers favours on administrators and money on cricket associations was, perhaps, a foolish premise on which to base the resurrection of the fair name of Indian cricket. 

 

The BCCI is such a bundle of contradictions in terms of conflicts of interest, with the president himself owning an IPL franchise through his cement company, that we could not have expected anything better. And then we had his enthusiastic son-in-law allegedly betting on IPL cricket matches.

 

Most failures on the moral count in the time since the scandal erupted in May 2013 were those of Mr Srinivasan. The blame for the latest and risible episode of proposing a panel that could be seen favourably inclined towards the BCCI lies with his minions. 

 

Even so, unless the basic fount of the conflict of interest (a BCCI member owning a team) is removed from the IPL, the league will continue to suffer. A fundamental reform in either the president stepping down or selling his company’s cricket team has to be the minimum criterion of an IPL clean-up.