CAB wants sealed envelope handed to Lodha panel

The Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) has petitioned the Supreme Court of India to hand over the final report of the Justice Mudgal committee on corruption in IPL 2013, along with the sealed envelope related to the investigation, to the Justice Lodha panel that is currently entrusted with the case.

The sealed envelope referred to by the CAB was the one handed over to the Supreme Court by the Mudgal committee in February 2014, which contained the names of 13 individuals and allegations of sporting fraud against them. Four of those individuals, including former BCCI president N Srinivasan, have been named by the court; the envelope was to be opened and its contents read by only the judges who had ordered the independent Mudgal probe. The panel had stated that the information was sensitive and it would not be "proper to cast aspersions on the persons named unless investigations are conducted".

The Mudgal committee was asked by the court in May 2014 to continue his probe into the 13 individuals named in the envelope, and was given greater investigative powers. Its final report was submitted in November 2014.

The CAB wants the court to hand over the contents of the sealed envelope and the full Mudgal report to the Lodha panel, which is currently in the process of drawing up its recommendations for restructuring the BCCI.

The Mudgal report had found Srinivasan not guilty of either betting or fixing, or of having tried to prevent the investigation into the IPL 2013 scandal. However, the report stated that Srinivasan, along with four other BCCI officials, knew about an IPL player violating the code of conduct but took no action. Srinivasan was one of four key individuals related to Indian cricket - along with former Chennai Super Kings team official Gurunath Meiyappan, former Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra and IPL chief operating officer Sundar Raman - to be mentioned in the report for misdemeanours. The Mudgal panel found both Gurunath and Kundra guilty of indulging in betting.

The Lodha panel, which was formed to decide the quantum of punishment for Gurunath, Kundra and their respective franchises, had announced its verdict last month. While Gurunath and Kundra were banned for life from having any involvement with cricket or the BCCI, the owners of the Super Kings and Royals franchises - India Cements and Jaipur IPL Pvt Ltd - were suspended for two years.

The petition by the CAB, led by its secretary Aditya Verma, is the latest in the organisation's tussle against the BCCI. The CAB has repeatedly challenged the BCCI's handling of the IPL 2013 corruption scandal in court. Its opposition began with a Public Interest Litigation filed in the Bombay High Court over conflict of interest issues, after an independent two-member probe panel constituted by the BCCI found no evidence of wrongdoing by Gurunath - Srinivasan's son-in-law - or Kundra with relation to the IPL 2013 corruption saga. The Bombay High Court found the BCCI's probe panel to be "illegally" constituted, but did not constitute a fresh panel.

The CAB and the BCCI subsequently both challenged the court's order in the Supreme Court of India. The country's apex court appointed a three-member committee headed by Justice Mudgal, and comprising additional solicitor general L Nageswara Rao and Nilay Dutta, to conduct an independent inquiry into the allegations of corruption against Gurunath, Kundra, India Cements and Jaipur IPL Cricket Private Ltd. The Mudgal committee also had the larger mandate of looking into allegations around betting and spot-fixing in IPL matches, and the involvement of players.