SC refuses interim relief to BCCI, agrees to hear its plea

The Supreme Court today refused to grant interim stay on Bombay High Court verdict declaring as illegal and unconstitutional the BCCI's two-member probe panel set up to look into spot-fixing and betting charges in the IPL tournament.

A bench of justices A K Patnaik and J S Khehar, however, agreed to hear Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) petition challenging the high court's judgement and issued notice on its plea.

The bench asked Cricket Association of Bihar, on whose plea the high court had delivered its verdict, to file its response on BCCI's petition within two weeks and posted the matter for hearing on August 29.

The high court order had come on July 30 just two days after the panel, comprising two former judges of the Madras High Court Justices T Jayarama Chouta and R Balasubramanian, submitted its report giving a clean chit to all those against whom the probe was conducted.

The panel had gone into the charges against India Cements Ltd, owners of IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings, its former Team Principal Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI's President-in-exile N Srinivasan and Raj Kundra, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals.

The panel was set up by BCCI and IPL Governing Council after surfacing of the betting and fixing scandal.