Supreme Court asks BCCI chief to step down

The Supreme Court came down heavily on the Board of Control for Cricket in India and N Srinivasan, its president, asking that he step down from his post, reports Wisden India.

According to a Press Trust of India report on Tuesday (March 25), the court said: "No fair investigation is possible unless he steps down."

On March 7, the apex court had adjourned the hearing on the Justice Mukul Mudgal committee's probe into the Indian Premier League corruption to Tuesday, and a bench of Justices AK Patnaik and FMI Kalifulla said the court would pronounce a verdict on Thursday, saying, "If you don't step down, then we will pass the order", adding that Srinivasan's refusal to quit so far was "nauseating".

"There are no definite findings by the Mudgal committee but the allegations are of a very serious nature," Patnaik told the court. The judge asked the BCCI's lawyers to go away and read the report and return on Thursday when the case will continue.

Ravi Savant, a BCCI vice-president, said if a ruling came from the Supreme Court, the board would have to abide by it. "I haven't read the report yet," Savant told the Headlines Today television channel. "But if the Supreme Court has said something we are bound by it. It cannot be ignored. "

Savant, who is also the president of the Mumbai Cricket Association, said he hadn't yet received any intimation of the BCCI constituting a special general meeting to deal with the apex court's directions. Meanwhile Rajiv Shukla, also a BCCI vice-president, refused to comment on the issue.

The Mudgal committee had submitted a 170-page report of its findings to the Supreme Court on February 10. The three-member committee had implicated Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of Srinivasan, of having indulged in betting and passing team information during IPL 2013. The committee had also concluded that Meiyappan was not an 'enthusiast', but an official of the franchise.

It found corruption to be rampant in Indian cricket, and in the IPL in particular, and suggested recommendations to the BCCI, saying, "The problem is required to be addressed with absolute seriousness and with a strong determination to cleanse the game."