Court clears Srinivasan's elevation to BCCI president

India's Supreme Court has cleared the way for N Srinivasan to take over as BCCI president later this month. It has, however, said its decision is subject to the outcome of a separate petition challenging his election.

Justices Aftab Alam and RM Lodha ruled that if Srinivasan was stopped from becoming president now, it would amount to deciding the outcome of the petition, which is being looked at by a larger bench of the Supreme Court.

The petition was filed by AC Muthiah, a former BCCI president, based on the grounds that in April, a two-judge bench returned a split verdict on whether there was a conflict of interest concerning Srinivasan's ownership of the Chennai Super Kings while being an office-bearer of the board.

At that time Justices JM Panchal and Gyan Sudha Mishra had disagreed on the legality of the amendment to the BCCI constitution allowing Srinivasan to be part-owner of the Chennai Super Kings while being a serving member of the board.

The BCCI had amended clause 6.2.4 of the regulations for players, team officials, umpires and administrators in September 2008, shortly after the first season of the IPL. Before the amendment the clause read: "No administrator shall have, directly or indirectly, any commercial interest in the matches and events conducted by the board." After the change, it read: "No administrator shall have directly or indirectly any commercial interest in any of the events of the BCCI, excluding IPL, Champions League and Twenty20."

Muthiah's argument was that the exclusion of IPL and Twenty20 events was made specifically to benefit Srinivasan. In September 2010, Justice Mishra had suggested Srinivasan resign from his position in the board.