On October 17, the Kerala High Court restored the life ban imposed on cricketer S Sreesanth by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
The order came on an appeal filed by the BCCI against a single-judge verdict revoking the life ban imposed on the cricketer in the wake of the Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Navniti Prasad Singh ruled that the court could not conduct a judicial review of the life ban imposed by the BCCI, and hence upheld the appeal.
An irate Sreesanth took to Twitter and tweeted against the decision.
Sreesanth’s anger, in parts, seems justified. The BCCI had suspended S Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila immediately after news broke of their arrest and then banned after the disciplinary committee investigation. The board had also insisted their bans will stand despite the court clearing them of all charges.
That is precisely why the reluctance of the Supreme Court to reveal the names that were listed in the sealed envelope reeks of double standards. They have neither handed the envelope to the Lodha Committee that is running the BCCI nor to the police so that it can be investigated further.
Consider this: The Mudgal Committee submitted a list of 13 names to the Supreme Court in a sealed envelope in November 2014 but we are still not close to learning who the players on the list are or whether the allegations were investigated any further.
At that point, the bench had still seemed vaguely interested in getting to the bottom of the allegations. “If the Committee wants to look into it without affecting the image and reputation of some persons, it can consider it. As far as image of people is concerned, that should not be affected unnecessarily,” the bench had said at the time.
But the Bihar Cricket Committee’s plea to hand over the envelope to the BCCI was not considered.
In his plea, Aditya Verma, the secretary of the CAB, said, “The full copy of the final report of the Justice Mudgal Committee and the sealed cover may be handed over to the Justice Lodha Committee. This is necessary because the Justice Lodha Committee has to have the benefit of the full text of the Justice Mudgal Committee report to appreciate the extent of the malaise which has set in the game of cricket so that while suggesting the administrative reforms for BCCI, it can suggest measures to ensure that, in future, the reputation of the game of cricket will not be sullied by any scam.
If the full text of the report is not given to the Justice Lodha Committee, the time and effort spent by the Justice Mudgal Committee and the investigating team and the heavy expenditure incurred by the respective governments will go totally waste.”
However, we do know that one player, who was accidentally named in court, was part of the India’s World Cup side in 2015. Who were the others and what did they do?
“I think the Supreme Court decided not to reveal the names for reasons known to them,” Mudgal told Mumbai Mirror. They were allegations. Not necessarily all 13 names are involved. After the Supreme Court has seen the matter, I don’t think it can go on any further. That chapter is closed.”
And that is the sadness of it all. The chapter is now closed. The players are still playing. They may or may not have been guilty, but the burden of suspicion will always hang over them.
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