BCCI names Shastri in three-member probe panel

The Indian cricket board Sunday named former skipper Ravi Shastri in the three-member probe panel that would be proposed to the Supreme Court to probe the betting scandal in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

At the emergency working committee meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) head R.K. Raghavan and former chief justice of the Calcutta High Court J.N. Patel were also named in the new probe panel, well-informed sources told IANS.

The name of former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee was also discussed, the sources said.

However, BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel refused to take any names.

"We have finalised the three-member panel that will be proposed to the Supreme Court but, considering the sanctity of the court, I cannot reveal their names," Patel told reporters after the meeting.

Former BCCI president Shashank Manohar also attended the meeting and sources told IANS that the three-member panel was carefully picked to impress the Supreme Court with a free and fair probe. Manohar opposed Raghavan's name but didn't get any support.

The BCCI will recommend the new probe panel to the Supreme Court April 22 when the apex court will finally decide who will investigate the matter fairly.

Last week, the Supreme Court said N. Srinivasan's name features in the list of the 13 people named by the Mudgal Committee in the IPL betting scam and he cannot take charge if the BCCI has to conduct an inquiry on its own.

Though the apex court admitted that all the charges are yet to be verified, it said that if the BCCI is given powers to investigate then it has to be done without Srinivasan at the top.

Supreme Court had removed Srinivasan as the BCCI president and put Sunil Gavasakar as the interim president in-charge of the IPL and senior vice-president Shivlal Yadav in-charge of rest of the affairs.

The bench stressed on the institutional autonomy of the BCCI and said: "If the BCCI has to be given power to investigate then it has to be done without Srinivasan and till investigation is complete Srinivasan will not come back. If there is an SIT (Special Investigation Team), things will be different. But IPL must go on."