SC refuses stay order declaring cricket probe panel illegal

The Supreme Court Wednesday refused to stay a Bombay High Court order which held as illegal a panel set up by the Indian cricket board for probing allegations of betting during the sixth edition of the IPL.

The panel, comprising retired judges T. Jayarama Chouta and R. Balasubramanian, had given a clean chit to Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president N. Srinivasan's son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, the Chennai Super Kings team principal, and Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra.

An apex court bench of Justice A.K. Patnaik and Justice J.S. Khehar rejected the BCCI's plea for staying the high court order, saying there was nothing wrong with it.

Srinivasan is the managing director of India Cements that holds the IPL franchise of Chennai Super Kings whose principal was Meiyappan.

The apex court also issued notice to the Cricket Association of Bihar asking it to respond to the BCCI plea within two weeks and gave another one week to the cricketing body to file its rejoinder.

The cricket board's senior counsel C.A. Sundaram found fault with the high court order, contending that it ignored a provision in BCCI rules that allowed it to set up such a probe panel.

He said that during the June 10 meeting of the BCCI working committee Delhi cricket association representative on the committee Arun Jaitley said that there was no need for nominating a third member to the probe panel.

The working committee meeting was held following the resignation of Sanjay Gagdale as the BCCI's secretary.

Appearing for Cricket Association of Bihar, senior counsel Nalini Chidambaram told the court that nobody knew who appointed the two judges for the probe panel.

As Justice Patnaik reminded Chidambaram that the both of them were the retired judges of the Madras High Court, she said that was the problem.

She told the court that the BCCI's interim chief Jagmohan Dalmiya had no powers to reduce the probe panel's strength from three to two, as he had been inducted in place of Srinivasan just to look after the day to day affairs of the cricketing body.

The court would next hear the matter Aug 29.