Court rejects plea to reinstate Srinivasan as BCCI chief

AFP, New Delhi :
The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday rejected N. Srinivasan’s plea to reinstate him as India’s cricket chief, saying he had effectively turned a blind eye to allegations of wrongdoing in the Indian Premier League.
The court last month ordered Srinivasan to stand aside as president of the Indian board, installing batting great Sunil Gavaskar to oversee the latest edition of the Twenty20 tournament which opens later Wednesday.
Srinivasan, seen as the most powerful man in world cricket, asked the court on Tuesday to reinstate him, saying he was being unfairly blamed for corruption allegations that have hit the board’s flagship IPL.
But the court said Srinivasan knew about, but did not take seriously, allegations contained in a court-commissioned report over claims of illegal betting and spot-fixing embroiling the IPL.
Justice A.K Patnaik reiterated the court’s opinion that Srinivasan’s presence as head of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was preventing a fair probe into the allegations.
“We cannot close our eyes after having come to know about allegations,” the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted Patnaik as saying, adding the court wanted the BCCI to handle the investigations itself.
“It (the report) said all these allegations were brought to his (Srinivasan’s) notice but he did not take any action. That means he was aware about the allegations and did not take it seriously,” he said.
The court asked the BCCI to provide details on how it planned to conduct any probe into the allegations contained in the report, before adjourning the case until April 22.
A court-appointed panel has been looking into allegations into last year’s IPL when former Test bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth was caught deliberately bowling badly while playing for the Rajasthan Royals in return for thousands of dollars from bookmakers.
The panel’s report, sections of which were released in February, concluded that Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan-who was the team principal of the Chennai Super Kings-could be guilty of illegal betting on IPL games.
The Super Kings are owned by India Cements, whose managing director is Srinivasan. The team are captained by India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
On Tuesday, Srinivasan, who is still due to take over as head of the International Cricket Council in July, told the court in his affidavit that he had not been involved in any corruption or cover up of any wrong doing.
With its massive TV audiences, India generates almost 70 percent of the game’s revenues and several Test nations are heavily dependent on its largesse.
International news organisations, including Agence France- Presse (AFP), have suspended their on-field coverage of matches hosted by the BCCI since 2012 after the board imposed restrictions on picture agencies.