Supreme Court issues notice to BCCI, Srinivasan and Royals

The Supreme Court of India has issued notices to the BCCI, N Srinivasan, his company India Cements - which owns IPL team Chennai Super Kings - and Rajasthan Royals on an appeal challenging the Bombay High Court order from a month ago for not appointing a fresh committee to probe the alleged corruption in the IPL.

The Bombay High Court had ruled that the BCCI's probe panel which investigated allegations of corruption in the IPL was constituted illegally. The appeal against that ruling, lodged by the Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB), was on the grounds that the high court did not appoint a new committee to investigate the matter afresh.

A bench, headed by Justice AK Patnaik, agreed to hear the CAB appeal, and clubbed it with the appeal filed by the BCCI that had challenged the high-court judgement on different grounds - the Indian board maintained that the two-member probe panel was legal. The BCCI was represented by C Aryama Sundaram, while the CAB case was argued by eminent lawyer Harish Salve.

The parties issued notices have until September 11 to reply to the Supreme Court, when the cross appeals are scheduled to be heard by the apex court.

The Supreme Court had earlier refused to grant an interim stay on the high-court verdict, denting the efforts of Srinivasan to return as BCCI chief.

Srinivasan had stepped aside from discharging his duties as BCCI president in the light of the spot-fixing and betting scandal which allegedly involved his son-in-law and Chennai Super Kings top official Gurunath Meiyappan.

The high-court order had come on July 30, just two days after the panel, comprising two former judges of the Madras High Court Justices T Jayarama Chouta and R Balasubramanian, submitted its report that gave a clean chit Meiyappan, India Cements, Royals' holding company Jaipur IPL Pvt Ltd and their co-owner Raj Kundra.