Srinivasan Can Contest in BCCI Elections, Says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the BCCI decision to extend the term of its current office bearers beyond 30 September, and hold the annual general body meeting on 20 November.

"Your real purpose is to hold the election now so that N Srinivasan is prevented from contesting," said a bench of Justice TS Thakur and Justice Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla, as senior counsel Nalini Chidambram contested the decision of the BCCI working committee to hold the AGM later than normally allowed.

At the outset of the hearing, Justice Thakur said they were concerned with the limited issue of the allegations of spot-fixing and betting in the IPL 2013, allegedly involving Srinivasan's son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan and others which is currently being investigated by Justice Mukul Mudgal.

The plea of Chidambram, appearing for the Cricket Association of Bihar, that at present there were no office bearers of the BCCI as their term came to an end on 30 September, did not cut ice with the court.

Meeting the contention of the Cricket Association of Bihar, senior counsel CA Sundaram, appearing for the BCCI, told the court that extension of the existing term of the cricketing body has been approved by the registrar of co-operative societies in Chennai. BCCI is a registered society in Chennai.

Besides this, Sundaram said the term of the officer bearers was from one AGM to the next AGM and if, for some reasons, the AGM could not take place on the appointed date, it would not mean that the cricketing body is denuded of its office bearers.

He cited the Companies Act in support of his plea countering the contention of Cricket Association of Bihar.

"We can't take away the powers of the registrar of co-operative society to extend the term of an existing body under the rules," the court observed.

Apparently not persuaded by the CAB's plea, the court asked BCCI and Srinivasan to respond to the application by the CAB challenging the decision to extend the term of the current office bearers of the cricketing body till 20 November. Senior counsel Kapil Sibal appeared for Srinivasan.

Asking for their response, the court said that it would take up the matter on 10 November when it is scheduled to consider the report of Justice Mudgal, who is investigating allegations of spot-fixing and betting.

Justice Mudgal has already submitted an interim report which was taken up for consideration by the court during its hearing on 1 September. As he had sought some more time to complete the investigation, the court granted him two months more and had fixed 10 November for the next hearing.