KOCHI: Taking the BCCI to task, the Kerala High Court on Monday observed the cricket body should remember any disciplinary action related to a player of national repute affects his reputation and confidence which he built through hard work.
“It is the duty of the BCCI to safeguard such interests of the player without compromising on the purity and integrity of the game,” the court said. The court said the entire evidence clearly pointed out the ‘betting syndicate’ and other ‘mafia’ have encircled the gentleman’s game cricket as well. The BCCI in its earnest efforts to extinguish such bad elements should have separated the ‘wheat from the chaff’.
The IPL match fixing case depicts a case of betting scandal affecting the morale of sports and confidence of the millions who follow the game.
The BCCI is the sole authority in the country to regulate the affairs of cricket. Merely because the BCCI dominates and has a monopoly over the cricket in India will not make every action of the BCCI amenable to the jurisdiction of the court. The BCCI imposed extreme punishment against Sreesanth based on two sets of evidence, including his confession before the police. The court said Sreesanth’s confession was made while he was in police custody.
It was his case that he was tortured to admit his guilt. The law envisages to exclude such evidence with a view to avoiding malpractices of the police officers on extorting the confession from an accused person. The court said the BCCI did not make any attempt to prove the confession was voluntary. The court observed the disciplinary committee had never chosen to confront Sreesanth with the transcription of the conversation of Jiju Janardhanan and Chandresh Patel recorded, especially when the conversation as such did not disclose his direct involvement in spot fixing.