NEW DELHI: The BCCI on Wednesday submitted a list of players including former greats Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Saurav Ganguly and administrators with commercial interest in the IPL to the Supreme Court which reserved its order in the alleged betting and spot fixing scam case.
Perusing the BCCI’s list which also included Anil Kumble, Krish Srikkanth, Venkatesh Prasad and Lalchand Rajput, a bench headed by Justice T S Thakur said, “If you have commercial interest in the IPL or any other format, then you should not be in the administration.”
Senior advocate C A Sundaram, appearing for BCCI, gave the list and said that in some way or the other, they have commercial interests in the IPL.
“Some of them are doing commentary and players like Kumble and Srikkanth are the mentors of IPL teams Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad respectively,” Sundaram said.
The Court said, “So far as IPL or Champions League are concerned, you (BCCI) have removed them from rule 6.2.4. Let us not deal with it. Let us take the example of tests. The no.7 (Srikkanth) is in the selection committee. He is also a mentor of Sunrisers Hyderabad (IPL team).
“How can you keep him there (in the selection panel). How will you justify that,” the bench, also comprising Justice F M I Kalifulla, said.
“How you allowed the No.7 (Srikkanth) to be a selector when he already had a role in IPL. We are on the selection of national team,” it said.
These are the cases of “potential” conflict of interests and it would be a very difficult situation if they are treated as “conflict of interests”, the counsel for BCCI said.
