The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected N Srinivasan's appeal to be reinstated as the BCCI president and stressed that he, along with 12 players, have been named in the Mudgal report.
The court has also allowed Sundar Raman to continue as the Chief Operating Officer (COO)of the Indian Premier League after Sunil Gavaskar, the interim BCCI president, had written to the court saying he could not decide on Raman. Last month, the SC had asked Gavaskar to make a decision on whether Raman should continue as the COO.
The SC, for the first time, revealed some details of the sealed envelope, submitted by Mudgal committee. It is now understood that Srinivasan has 12 allegations against his name. "It seems that Mr Srinivasan has not taken the allegations seriously," stated Justice AK Patnaik.
On Tuesday, Srinivasan had filed an affidavit, asking the court to reconsider its decision which forced him to step aside as the BCCI president to allow fair probing into the issue.
"I wish to assume office as President, BCCI as there is no reason at all why I should step aside, pending any investigation into any crime being investigated by CB-CID or other agency," Srinivasan said in his affidavit.
In reply, the court clearly stated that Srinivasan will be kept out of the BCCI till any later SC decision overrules it.
"We cannot close our eyes after having come to know about the allegations," said the court. "We don't want to sully anybody's image, but we are also concerned about the game of cricket and to protect it so that it remains clean."
The court also made it clear that no independent agency will be involved in the investigation, since the names involved are highly reputed.
"We are not considering the SIT because we don't want the CBI or the police or the media to throw mud on cricketers," Patnaik said. "Reputations of cricketers and great names are at stake. What happens to the reputation of the players who are representing the country and Indian cricketers of the future. Cricket has to be clean but institutional autonomy has to be maintained."
In addition, the court has asked the BCCI to come up with constructive measures that could include the board itself engaging in fair probing in the profiles of the names mentioned in the Mudgal report.
The court will next hear on 22 April.
(Ed: VP)
