Supreme Court to hear plea against Srinivasan on September 27

India's Supreme Court will hear on September 27 a plea filed by the Cricket Association of Bihar seeking to restrain BCCI president N Srinivasan from contesting the BCCI elections on September 29. The plea, filed by CAB secretary Aditya Verma on Monday, seeks an interim injunction against Srinivasan that would also prevent him from being a member of any board committee, pending the verdict on an earlier special leave petition (SLP) filed by Verma against the BCCI in July.

This is the CAB's second petition before the Supreme Court. The earlier petition had challenged the Bombay High Court's order on the BCCI's inquiry committee investigating corruption in the IPL on the grounds that it had failed to appoint a fresh probe panel. The Supreme Court was due to hear final arguments in the case on September 12 but ran out of time on that day.

In fact the Bombay High Court order came on a petition filed by the CAB questioning the constitution of the two-man inquiry committee set up by the BCCI to probe corruption charges in the IPL. Verma had accused Srinivasan of utilising his position as the BCCI president in the setting up of the probe panel and called that unconstitutional. The High Court concluded that there was "a degree of probability" of Srinivasan playing a role in setting up the inquiry panel, and subsequently termed the probe "illegal".

The BCCI then filed its own SLP challenging that order. As a counter, the CAB filed another SLP. The verdict on the petition against the order of the Bombay High Court is still pending in the Supreme Court.

The BCCI lawyers had indicated that the CAB SLP would have no immediate repercussions on the board or for Srinivasan. The main intention of the BCCI's SLP was to clear Srinivasan's name from allegations, including the Bombay High Court remark which did not rule out his involvement in the appointment of the inquiry panel.