BJP leader, Subramanian Swamy urges Supreme Court to lift ban on CSK, Rajasthan Royals

NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to lift its ban on IPL teams Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals, on the ground that the PIL petitioner had colluded with former IPL chief Lalit Modi to mislead the Lodha panel against former chairman N Srinivasan and now suspended teams CSK and Rajasthan Royals.

Swamy claimed that Modi had, after fleeing authorities in India, colluded with Cricket Association of Bihar secretary Aditya Verma to influence the course of events in the Bombay High Court and later the top court, culminating in the suspension of the two teams from the tournament for two years.

Verma was only a proxy for Modi, Swamy said, quoting press reports and purported emails exchanged between incumbent Shashank Manohar, Verma and Modi. He mentioned in his plea, on an urgent out of turn basis in the court of Chief Justice of India TS Thakur and Justice UU Lalit, which said it would come up with the other BCCI cases in court next week and also sought a stay on the Lodha panel report.

The top court has sought the BCCI and the IPL teams’ responses to sweeping changes suggested by the Lodha panel to clean up the game in India.

Swamy claimed that Verma’s entire litigation against the BCCI was financed by Modi who allegedly held beneficial interest in the IPL teams himself and could by no stretch of imagination be termed as a PIL. Other reports, he charged, indicated that Modi was in touch with current BCCI chief Shashank Manohar through emails.

“These emails confirm the statements in the news reports and show that the entire proceedings, beginning from the PIL before the High Court and which ultimately culminated in the suspension of CSK and RR, was targeted and is tainted by unclean hands, being a proxy litigation at the behest of vested interests.”

He claimed that he had material to show that enormous injustice was caused to CSK and its owner and also RR in course of what was prima facie “an unfair and one sided adjudication process” culminating in CSK’s suspension.

He alleged that Srinivasan and his sonlaw were targeted by vested interests who went about highlighting their alleged indiscretions to discredit CSK to knock them out from competing against inferior rivals and settle private scores. Swamy claimed he had more information about others who helped Modi in bringing Srinivasan’s downfall and offered to submit it in a sealed cover.

CSK, Swamy claimed, was the single most popular and successful IPL team and stood “unfairly suspended” from the IPL because of the motivated legal campaign against it.

“… the action against CSK and RR is the result of an unholy criminal conspiracy hatched by a proclaimed offender (Modi) and those others who have vested interests to take control of cricket as a money laundering machine and a dispenser of vice.”

This had denied the people of the state an opportunity to legitimately take pride in CSK’s achievements, he contended. He also claimed that a past ICC president and one of the powerful politicians in the country had conspired with Modi to influence police action against Srinivasan in an attempt to discredit and malign CSK.