IPL spot-fixing: SC agrees to hear plea seeking players' names from Mudgal report

The Supreme Court agreed on Thursday to hear a plea in the IPL spot-fixing case seeking handing over of Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee’s report, which contains names of some players allegedly involved in the scandal, to the Justice R M Lodha panel considering administrative reforms in BCCI. The application filed by Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) was mentioned before a three-judge bench headed by Justice T S Thakur which ordered its listing for urgent hearing on Friday at 2 pm. The plea claimed that if the entire contents of the third report are not given to the Justice Lodha Committee, the time and effort spent by Justice Mudgal Committee and the probe team would be wasted. [caption id=“attachment_2382014” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The plea claimed that if the entire contents of the third report are not given to the Justice Lodha Committee, the time and effort spent by Justice Mudgal Committee and the probe team would be wasted. Reuters[/caption] It said even the heavy expenditure incurred by the respective governments will go “totally waste”. The plea sought a direction to the Supreme Court Registry to hand over to Justice Lodha Committee, the first report and full text of Justice Mudgal Committee’s third report which was submitted in the apex court on November 1 last year. “This is necessary since Justice Lodha Committee has to have the benefit of the full text of the Justice Mudgal Committee report to appreciate the extent of the malaise which has set in the game of cricket so that while suggesting the administrative reforms for BCCI it can suggest measures to ensure that in future the reputation of the game of cricket will not be sullied by any scam. “If the full text of the third report is not given to the Justice Lodha Committee, the time and effort spent by Justice Mudgal Committee and the investigating team and the heavy expenditure incurred by the respective governments will go totally waste,” the plea filed by Aditya Verma, secretary of the association, said. It said the probe committee’s final report contains the allegations against the 13 persons including N Srinivasan and the sealed cover was not given to anybody and is lying with the Supreme Court Registry. “Pursuant to the order of this court, the Justice Lodha Committee has published the first portion of their report on the punishment to be imposed on Gurunath Meiyappan, Raj Kundra and Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals. The committee is considering administrative reforms for BCCI and has sought time till end of December this year to complete it work,” the application said. The apex court-appointed three-member committee of retired judges headed by former Chief Justice of India R M Lodha was entrusted the job of further investigating the IPL-6 scandal, including the allegations against the then BCCI COO Sundar Raman. The Justice Lodha Committee, which also has Justices Ashok Bhan and R V Ravenderan as members, had in July decided the quantum of punishment against former BCCI President N Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, who was also a CSK official, and Raj Kundra, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals, who both were held guilty of betting. With regard to allegations against Sundar Raman, the apex court had said it cannot go “unprobed” and had directed the Justice Lodha Committee to further investigate the averments against him, saying “truth must be brought to light”. The Justice Lodha Committee has suspended for two year star-studded Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals from the IPL. Meiyappan, a former Team Principal of India Cements Ltd (ICL)-owned franchise CSK and Kundra, co-owner of Jaipur IPL that runs Rajasthan Royals (RR), were suspended for life from any matches conducted by BCCI. PTI