SC reserves order on Subramanian Swamy’s appeal against ban on CSK

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy is known for his petitions. It is seldom that none of his petitions are being heard in the Supreme Court or any other court. The Supreme Court of India today reserved the order on his plea filed against the two-year ban on the Indian Premier League franchise Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

In his plea, Swamy has stated that there were no direct allegations against the owner of the CSK team and former BCCI and ICC President N Srinivasan or against any members of the team which makes the ban imposed by the Justice R M Lodha panel “illegal, arbitrary and unreasonable”. A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur which is hearing the case said that it will pronounce an order.

Last year, the Lodha panel had imposed two years ban on two IPL teams CSK and Rajasthan Royals. During the investing of the IPL spot-fixing case, the panel had found that Raj Kundra and Gurunath Meiyappan two individuals involved in a position of influence and authority with the team were guilty of betting and thus decided to ban the teams.

While Kundra was the co-owner of the RR, Meiyappan the son-in-law of N Srinivasan was the Team Principal of CSK. Both the individuals were handed over life ban from any match organized by the BCCI.

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Challenging the decision Swamy had moved to the SC on August 26. Earlier the Madras High Court had on January 20 dismissed his Public Interest Litigation questioning the ban. The HC said that the PIL was not maintainable.

After the Lodha committee’s verdict, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was forced to introduce two new city based teams for the 9th edition of the IPL played in 2016. BCCI allotted two new franchises to Rajkot and Pune and the teams Gujarat Lions and Rising Pune Supergiants entered the competition. But another notable aspect is that it awarded them the franchise just for the two years while the two major teams were killing the suspension period.

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