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In charges that could affect cricket tournament Indian Premier League (IPL)'s teams Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR), the Mukul Mudgal committee indicted the teams' respective officials Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra of betting and confirmed their roles in their teams but it cleared N Srinivasan of match-fixing and scuttling the probe.
The three-member committee, in its report to the Supreme Court, however, indicted Srinivasan, the International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman, for not taking action against a cricketer, whom it did not name, for violating the players' code of conduct despite being aware of it.
It confirmed Meiyappan was a team official (team principal) of CSK while RR's owner Kundra's "infractions violated BCCI/IPL anti-corruption code".
A provision in the IPL code of conduct says any team official found guilty of "bringing the game into disrepute" by betting or match-fixing could see his/her team expelled. The committee held Srinivasan's son-in-law Meiyappan was involved in betting but not match-fixing. It questioned why the Rajasthan police had stopped a probe into Kundra's alleged betting activities abruptly, after the case was transferred from the Delhi police. Further, the committee found IPL Chief Operating Officer Sundar Raman had known a contact detail of a bookie and had contacted him eight times in a season. "Raman accepted he had received information about Meiyappan and Kundra taking part in betting activities but was informed by the ICC's anti-corruption and security unit chief this was not actionable information. He accepted this information was not conveyed to any other individual," the committee said.
