Madras High Court today dismissed a petition by owner of Chennai Super Kings challenging Justice Lodha Committee's order suspending the IPL team for two years over the 2013 betting scam involving its top official Gurunath Meiyappan.
The First bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice P S Sivagnanam, who had reserved orders on the plea on December 14 last, dismissed the petition filed by Chennai Super Kings Cricket Limited (CSKL) as not maintainable.
The bench also dismissed a PIL filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy challenging the suspension of CSK and Rajasthan Royals on the same grounds.
Star-studded CSK, then led by M S Dhoni, and Rajasthan Royals were on July 14 last year suspended for two years from the Indian Premier League in a clean-up exercise following the 2013 betting scam involving their top officials Meiyappan and Raj Kundra.
Meiyappan, son-in-law of the then BCCI chief N Srinivasan and a former Team Principal of CSK, and Kundra, co-owner of Jaipur IPL that runs Rajasthan Royals (RR), were suspended for life from any match conducted by BCCI.
The punishments were handed down by a three-member panel headed by former CJI R M Lodha which was asked by the Supreme Court to decide the quantum of punishments after finding them guilty of betting.
Challenging the order of Lodha committee, city-based Chennai Super Kings, originally owned by India Cements Limited, in its petition had also sought a stay on the committee's order issued in September last year.
The petitioner had contended that the committee's order was against fundamental principles of natural justice and a fair hearing.
Opposing the petition, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had argued that the CSKL was not a legal entity and hence cannot file the case.
Senior counsel for BCCI A L Somayaji had submitted that CSK Cricket Limited is only a brand name of the franchise owned by India Cements Limited.
He had submitted that the franchise agreement was between BCCI and India Cements and that the latter had no right to assign or delegate ownership and even if it does it should be done with prior permission from BCCI.
He had argued that CSK Cricket Limited was not at all an aggrieved party and hence the liberty given by the Supreme Court that the aggrieved can approach the appropriate forum for remedy will not entitle it to file the present petition.
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In its order, the first bench said that the petitioner was seeking to exercise the right as an affected party based on the Supreme Court directive that the 'aggrieved party' can seek redressal in appropriate judicial proceedings.
The bench noted that the apex court order was delivered on January 22, 2015 while the transfer of the CSK franchise by India Cements to the petitioner (CSKL) was executed on February 20, 2015.
"The petitioner was nowhere in the picture as on 22nd January, 2015. If it was not in the picture, where could be the question of it being an aggrieved party which can seek redressal in appropriate judicial proceedings? Thus, this very premise that the petitioner can claim any independent right as an aggrieved party is clearly unsustainable," the court held.
On the petitioner's contention that public interest would suffer by the suspension of CSK, the Bench said it was only a brand name. "All we can say is that whatever be the extent of the performance of the team, the public interest in cleaning up operation of the game would far outweigh any public interest of watching the team perform."
Tracing the sequence of legal events in the case over the years, it said the apex court found it a fit case to intervene on the first issue of probity into the conduct of various people connected with the administration of cricket after Gurunath Meiyappan was chargesheeted based on the report of the Mudgal Committee.
The bench further said the apex court's January 22, 2015 judgement ultimately gave its imprimatur to the Justice Mudgal Committee's report.
"Thus it could never be seriously contended before us that we have to go back into the issues examined by Justice Mudgal Committee or merits thereof," the first bench said.
