New Delhi: The hearing in the Supreme Court on Wednesday saw for the first time exiled BCCI president Mr N. Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, who has been indicted by the Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee for betting in the IPL, taking the opportunity to explain his stand. He maintained he would not like to disclose whether or not he was a team official of CSK as any disclosure would prejudice him in the trial court, where he is facing a betting case. “I have a right to silence,” his counsel Siddharth Luthra said, while maintaining that Mr Meiyappan is facing trial and the issue whether he is a CSK official will arise there.
The bench also observed: “You have taken this stand after BCCI and India Cements Ltd, the owners of CSK, have accepted that you are a team official. Still you want to stay non-committal.” A bench headed by Justice T.S. Thakur also posed some questions on the lines of — should the actions of Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra lead to the cancellation of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) Rajasthan Royals (RR) teams?
“We are still in the process of hearing which will take some time to conclude,” the bench observed at the end of the hearing, directing postponement of the BCCI’s December 17 annual general meeting, for the election of office-bearers, which is now going to be held on or before January 31, 2015. It passed the order after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Mr Srinivasan, said since the hearing was not likely to be completed before December 17, the election of office-bearers had to be postponed, with which point it agreed.
The BCCI’s counsel said the Board will have to issue notice of three weeks for holding the election. For the first time in the history of the BCCI, the AGM has been postponed thrice, from September 26 to November 20 and then to December 17, and now to a date on or before January 31, 2015.
