There was speculation on Monday that the Indian cricket board would be naming Ravi Shastri and Ajay Shirke, members of the IPL governing council, to the three-member probe commission that will look into the charges against Gurunath Meiyappan of Chennai Super Kings in the IPL betting/fixing scam.
The third member will be a retired high court judge. Questions now arise over the fairness of an internal inquiry in which an independent member can be outvoted by two deep-rooted BCCI functionaries. The cricket board’s anti-corruption and security unit has also begun a probe into spot-fixing, the report aon which will be submitted to the Supreme Court in two weeks’ time.
With BCCI chief N. Srinivasan, who was booed at the IPL-6 presentation ceremony at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens late Sunday night, now preoccupied with issues relating to the Kodaikanal Golf Club at its annual meeting in the hills, IPL governing council chairman Rajeev Shukla also sidestepped queries from the media in New Delhi.
Questions are already being asked how television commentator Ravi Shastri, who is paid an annual fee of `3.20 crores directly by the BCCI under a tripartite agreement between the board, the TV rights owner and broadcaster, and the BCCI’s honorary treasurer can be considered non-partisan members of the probe commission. “This is just another internal probe which will not stand legal scrutiny because the report will have to be given to the BCCI president, who is an interested party as the probe is about his son-in-law,” a lawyer pointed out.
The police, meanwhile, on Monday turned the heat on Chennai businessman and hotelier Vikram Aggarwal, who is suspected to have been the person who introduced Gurunath to Vindoo Dara Singh. His lawyer Abudukumar says Vikram is in the custody of Tamil Nadu’s CB-CID. The raids on Gurunath’s properties continued Monday with his fancy yacht, Riviera, being searched in Chennai harbour and several mobile phones and a diary recovered. Gurunath bought the yacht from former Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden, a sailing enthusiast.