CHENNAI : More than a month after the hearing concluded in Dubai, the Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC) of the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Tuesday rejected Pakistan Cricket Board’s claim to seek compensation worth `447 crore from the BCCI for failure to honour an agreement to play bilateral series. Apart from losing the arbitration, the PCB now has to pay the BCCI for initiating legal proceedings, after the Indian board claimed it would seek legal costs.
Explaining the background and a letter signed in 2014, which was the bone of the contention between the two boards, and its findings in a 26-page report, the DRC headed by Michael J Beloff QC concluded: “For the reasons given above, the PCB’s claim is dismissed. Costs are reserved.”
Later, the BCCI in a statement signed by the Committee of Administrators said, “The BCCI has succeeded in the arbitration proceedings initiated against it by the Pakistan Cricket Board before the Dispute Resolution Committee of the International Cricket Council... After hearing the evidence and arguments of the parties over three days in Dubai, the Dispute Panel by its award published today has rejected all of PCB’s contentions and accepted the BCCI’s case inter alia on the ground that the BCCI letter was non-binding and merely expressed an intention to play.”
With the DRC rejecting PCB’s claims and the judgement binding with no further appeal entertained, Ehsan Mani, the chairman of the PCB told this newspaper that it up to the boards to move on from the issue. “I’ve always believed in dialogues between the two boards, which is what made the 2004 tour possible. The previous management of the PCB wanted to take a legal route and there is no going back and saying what is right and wrong.
Now, the matter is settled, it is important to look ahead. With the general elections of India slotted for 2019, I don’t see the current climate changing. It will take time and talks are the only way forward,” Mani said.
The hearing, which took place in Dubai from October 1-3, saw the BCCI depose its then secretary Sanjay Patel, who signed the letter, veteran administrator Ratnakar Shetty and Salman Khurshid, the former External Affairs Minister. With the PCB standing firm that the letter signed in April 2014 was binding and BCCI should pay them for not playing two bilateral series in November 2014 and December 2015 in Pakistan or UAE, the DRC was supposed to decide whether the agreement was legally binding.
But after the inquiry and studying the evidence material, the DRC in its findings said the BCCI only considered the letter as the first of a three-step process and it only viewed the Future Tours Programme Agreement (which was not signed) as legally binding. But what seemed to have tilted the matter in favour of BCCI is the minutes of the PCB’s managing committee meeting which was held after the letter was signed in April. “Members were also briefed that an MOU had been signed with BCCI and a legally binding agreement will subsequently be signed to formalise these arrangements.”
venkatakrishna@newindianexpress.com