New Delhi: There is nothing private about cricket, the Board, its affiliates and officials, ruled the Supreme Court on Monday. It said officials of the game managing the teams and mega bucks could be booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act on the charge of misappropriation of money.
A Bench comprising Justices V S Sirpurkar and T S Thakur dismissed appeals by president and secretary of the Kerala Cricket Association, an affiliate of the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), who had challenged an HC judgment permitting their prosecution under the PC Act.
It was alleged that the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) had received Rs 28.42 crore from BCCI in 2004-08 and Rs 1.88 lakh from the state government for promotion of cricket but its president and secretary — T R Balakrishnan and T C Mathew — misappropriated it. Both were booked under PC Act.
On October 26 last year, an HC single-judge Bench of Justice M Sasidharan Nambiar had decided a petition challenging a special judge’s finding that the Kerala Cricket Association was not a public body and its officials could not be booked under PC Act.
The HC framed the question: “Whether office-bearers of KCA are public servants as defined under Section 2(c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988?" After relying on a Supreme Court judgment, it said: “Even if cricket association is not an ‘other authority’ and thereby not an instrumentality of the state, for the purpose of Article 12 of the Constitution of India, if the secretary and president of the association, who hold those offices are authorised or required to perform any public duty by virtue of holding their offices, they would be public servants under Section 2 of the Act."
No comments:
Post a Comment