The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to grant an interim stay on the Bombay high court verdict terming as “illegal and unconstitutional” the probe by a two-judge panel formed by the Indian cricket board which gave a clean chit to its president N. Srinivasan, his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan and Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra over the IPL spot-fixing/betting scandal.
A bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and J.S. Khehar will, however, hear the BCCI’s petition challenging the high court order. It issued a notice to the Bihar cricket association, on whose petition the high court had issued its order, to file its response on the BCCI’s plea in two weeks, and posted the matter for hearing on August 29.
The high court gave its verdict on July 30, two days after the BCCI panel, comprising two former Madras high court judges, submitted its report giving a clean chit to all those against whom the probe was held. These included India Cements Ltd, owner of Chennai Super Kings, its former team principal Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI president-in-exile N. Srinivasan, and Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra. The panel was set up after the betting/spot-fixing scandal broke.
BCCI counsel C.A. Sundaram argued the high court had erred in holding that operational rules required the presence of at least one member of the IPL code of behaviour committee in the probe panel.