Cricket administration: India
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Conflict of interest
Manoj Mitta, Nov 30 2014
Supreme Court's own role in Srinivasan's `conflict of interest'
The contention that cricket administrator N Srinivasan was involved in a conflict of interest was “thoroughly misconceived“, “substance-less“ and proceeded on “a complete misconception of what T20 matches are all about“. No, these are not the words of counsel representing Srinivasan or BCCI in the ongoing battle before the Supreme Court on the IPL betting scandal. Rather, they are part of a controversial verdict given over three years ago by a judge of the same court on the same conflict of interest.
In April 2011, the presiding judge of a bench, JM Panchal, exonerated Srinivasan on the charge of conflict of interest while dismissing an appeal filed against a Madras high court decision by his predecessor in the BCCI, AC Muthiah. Justice Panchal did so citing two broad reasons.The first was that all decisions in BCCI including those relating to IPL were taken collectively , not by Srinivasan alone. The other reason was Muthiah's failure to show “how BCCI was put to financial loss because of participation by (Srinivisan) in bidding process for the IPL team“.
It could not however prevent the conflict of interest issue from resur facing in 2013 after the IPL betting revelations. Srinivasan could not shield himself with Panchal's judg ment as it had actually been neutral ized by a contrary view taken by the other member of his bench, Justice Gyan Sudha Misra. Besides endors ing Muthiah's allegation of conflict of interest, Misra said that if Srini vasan wanted to remain the Chen nai franchisee of IPL, “he shall be at liberty to do so but in that event he shall be restrained from holding any office in the BCCI in any capaci ty whatsoever“.
Since the two-judge bench deliv ered a `split verdict', it was incum bent on the Chief Justice of India to refer the matter to a larger bench But that never happened. The insti tutional failure to follow up on this matter of great public importance is a contributory factor in the latest crisis facing Indian cricket. This is evident from the fact that much of the scathing observations made by the current bench of Justices TS Thakur and FM Ibrahim Kalifullah are so reminiscent of the stand taken by Justice Misra in her 2011 judgment. In the 2011 case, upholding the award of Chennai franchise to India Cements, Panchal had said: “The re cord does not indicate that any franchisee or any member of BCCI has complained of any alleged conflict of in terest. It is nobody's case that the team was purchased by the respondent for a smug (sic) and that he had prevented others who wanted to offer more price for purchase of the team and thereby caused financial loss to BCCI. Thus, the plea of conflict of interest is substance-less and is hereby rejected“.
Tracing the growing popularity of T20 cricket at the expense of the traditional formats of the game, Panchal endorsed the IPL formula of conducting the matches “purely on commercial lines“. In his opinion, “it stands to reason that any person who is interested in the game should be able to participate in the commercial aspect of T20“.
