PREM PANICKER - The Guilty Men of Indian Cricket
The list of powerful figures who held office in the BCCI at
the time is illuminating: Rajiv Shukla and Jyotiraditya Scindia of the
Congress; Sharad Pawar of the NCP; Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley of the BJP… And yet, not one yip from an all-star roster of the most
powerful politicians in the land; not one move to bring their influence to bear
to see the right thing done, their own constitution honoured, and Srinivasan
prevented from actions that have done more even than the spot-fixers to bring
the game into disrepute... In all the triumphalism of Justice
Lodha’s pronouncements, and all the agonising over the fate of two franchises,
this is the question that gets short-shrift: If all these powerful political
figures stood mute for all these months, why are they not deemed accessories?
At 2 pm on July 14, the Supreme Court-mandated commission
led by Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha submitted its opinion regarding the
spot-fixing scandal that rocked the Indian Premier League in May 2013. And the
most astonishing thing about the report is that it should have
been necessary at all.
For what exactly did the Lodha Commission do? It banned
two individuals – Gurunath Meiyappan, a former official of the Chennai Super
Kings franchise and Raj Kundra, part owner of the Rajasthan Royals franchise –
from any further involvement in official cricket for life. And it banned the
two franchises, CSK and RR, from the IPL for two years.
All of that is exactly what the BCCI’s constitution
expressly mandates in such cases: that officials found indulging in corrupt
practices be banned for life, and that teams to which those officials belong
should be suspended.
In other words, the Lodha Commission did yesterday what the
BCCI could have done on May 16, 2013, or any day after that, of its own
volition. Instead, what did the BCCI do? It first tried to quarantine the infected officials, with
the disingenuous claim that Meiyappan in particular was not an official of the
CSK franchise but just a “cricket enthusiast” – therefore, no action could be
taken by the board, and no action need be taken against the franchise.
When the genie refused to go back into the bottle, the board
concocted an “inquiry committee” in such shambolic fashion that one of its
supposed constituents – then board secretary Sanjay Jagdale – was not even
aware he was on the panel. Predictably, the two remaining members of the
hand-picked committee “found no evidence of wrongdoing” against either Meiyappan
or Kundra. Two days after that triumphant conclusion, on July 30, 2013, the
Bombay High Court struck down the committee as “illegal”.
It was then that the board, driven entirely by its president
at the time, N. Srinivasan, made its first major misstep: it challenged the
Bombay High Court order in the Supreme Court, and thus drew the latter’s
attention to itself.
Despite Raj Kundra reportedly confessing his involvement in
betting as early as June 6, 2013, despite Meiyappan being named by the Bombay
police for involvement in betting, cheating and criminal conspiracy, despite
the Supreme Court asking the board to take action, it kept stonewalling, its
efforts bent towards one objective only: to ensure that N. Srinivasan’s Teflon
coating remained unmarred.
That led to the appointment of the Mukul Mudgal inquiry
committee to probe the scandal and the subsequent appointment of the Lodha
Commission to review the findings and make recommendations to the apex court
about the nature of punishment.
Which brings us back full circle to this: Two years and two
months after the scandal first hit the headlines, the Lodha Commission has
prescribed exactly what the BCCI constitution mandates — no more, no less. Der
aaye durust aaye. Good has triumphed over evil.
Holi hai!
Only, I keep going back to that one central thought: Why
could the BCCI not have done any of this of its own volition? Had it, two years
ago, taken the action its own constitution mandates and banned Kundra and
Meiyappan, even the suspension of the franchises would have been unnecessary.
Through these two years, one man drove the entire agenda,
both in the courts and in the court of public opinion. Meanwhile, the rest of
the honourable men making up the BCCI sat on their collective hands. The list
of powerful figures who held office in the BCCI at the time is illuminating:
Rajiv Shukla and Jyotiraditya Scindia of the Congress; Sharad Pawar of the NCP;
Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley of the BJP…
And yet, not one yip from an all-star roster of the most
powerful politicians in the land; not one move to bring their influence to bear
to see the right thing done, their own constitution honoured, and Srinivasan
prevented from actions that have done more even than the spot-fixers to bring
the game into disrepute.
In all the ‘justice is served’ triumphalism of Justice
Lodha’s pronouncements, and all the agonising over the fate of two franchises,
this is the question that gets short-shrift: If all these powerful political
figures stood mute for all these months, why are they not deemed accessories? What censure, what punishment, fits their crime?
