Indian Premier League chairman Rajiv Shukla’s aide Akram Saifi, who was accused of seeking money and sexual favours in return for selection in Uttar Pradesh’s under-23 team, has been given a clean chit, ignoring BCCI’s own anti-corruption guidelines. Kaifi has once again started calling the shots, the Indian Express reported on Friday.
Saifi was seen escorting India captain Rohit Sharma and West Indies skipper Carlos Brathwaite when they went to meet UP governor Ram Naik during the second T20 international in Lucknow.
An executive assistant of Shukla, Saifi had resigned following a sting operation by a UP-based news channel, which broadcast a telephone conversation in which Saifi sought favours in “cash and kind” to ensure cricketer Rahul Sharma’s selection into the state under-23 team.
Soon after the allegations surfaced, BCCI decided to investigate the allegations and its Anti-Corruption Unit even asked the channel to share the tapes, but the probe was dropped after he resigned.
“Saifi resigned from the BCCI, that is why we didn’t probe him,” BCCI’s ACU chief Ajit Singh Shekhawat was quoted as saying by the paper.
However, the paper points out that according to Rule 32 of BCCI’s regulations, any complaint of misconduct against an employee has to be decided by the commissioner.
Even Committee of Administrators chairman Vinod Rai told the paper that BCCI could have done nothing more in the case. “Since he [Saifi] was never a BCCI employee but a personal assistant of the IPL chairman, as soon as he was sacked by the IPL chairman, no probe could be done against him.”
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association ombudsman Justice (retd) CK Prasad also gave a clean chit to Saifi in a report submitted last month.
It is worth mentioning that Prasad was appointed as UPCA ombudsman in 2016 when Shukla was the secretary.
Shukla told the paper that the report was submitted after due diligence. “The person who had complained had been called, the selectors were called, the accused was called. Everyone was called. Proper procedure was followed. Justice Prasad is a very strict man. He called people twice and thrice for the probe.”
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