Pressure to resign mounts, but BCCI chief stays defiant

Srinivasan says he cannot be 'bulldozed'; Meiyappan sent to police custody till May 29

Amid a growing clamour for his resignation over his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan’s involvement in the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot-fixing scandal, a defiant Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chief N Srinivasan on Saturday said he could not be “bulldozed” or forced to quit.

On a day that saw the arrest of yet another bookie, Mohammad Yahya, who claimed “some more” Indian cricketers were in touch with him, pressure looked mounting on Srinivasan after Meiyappan, arrested yesterday, was remanded to police custody till May 29 by a Mumbai court. The senior Chennai Super Kings (CSK) official was slapped with cheating and gambling charges under Sections 465, 466, 468, 471, 419, 420, 120b of IPC 4 and 5 of the Gambling Act and 66a of the I-T Act.

Srinivasan, who landed in Mumbai on Saturday, said BCCI’s rules would be strictly followed. “I have done nothing wrong. I will not resign. And, I cannot be bulldozed. The rules of BCCI will be followed strictly and law will takes its own course,” he said. He added he had no knowledge of Gurunath’s activities. “I do not go for CSK matches and I hardly watch Twenty20 cricket,” said the BCCI chief, who is heading for Kolkata, where the final match of the IPL-6 is to be played between CSK and Mumbai Indians tomorrow. (A PUNTERS’ LEAGUE?)

However, BCCI sources said: “Srinivasan is in hopeless minority. Pressure is mounting on him to resign at the earliest. Impeachment proceedings could be initiated against Srinivasan if he refuses to step down.”

According to sources, any of the 30 working committee members — even from state cricket associations and clubs — could convene or call for an emergency meeting; someone would then have to move the resolution to impeach the president. The committee will vote on the resolution; if it gets a two-thirds majority, the resolution would be passed for the president’s impeachment.

Meanwhile, it looked likely the fates of cricketer S Sreesanth and two other Rajasthan Royals players, arrested earlier, would be decided by the disciplinary committee by the second week of June.

Senior BCCI members have asked Ravi Sawani, who is heading the anti-corruption unit, to finish his probe and finalise a detailed report at the earliest so that the committee members could start taking action against these players.

Interestingly, the action against Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan will mainly be based on media reports, because the anti-corruption unit, for the first time, will neither get access to players nor details of the evidence collected by the Delhi Police.

“We are not going to share evidence with BCCI and will also not give the anti-corruption unit access to these players. BCCI officials will have to depend on the information already available in the media,” said a senior police officer involved in the investigations.