The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has told the Supreme Court that “match fixing” should be treated as a criminal offence of cheating and dishonesty against players and others since it amounts to cheating thousands of spectators, sponsors and others involved.

The BCCI had made the plea by way of preliminary submission before the apex court and sought to be impleaded in a matter involving a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the Karnataka government in 2022 against a state high court judgment which quashed criminal cases against certain cricketers.

The present SLP has challenged the high court’s decision to quash the criminal case and FIR registered against six accused — two players, a team owner, person in-charge of a team, a bookie, coach and a member of the Karnataka State Cricket Association — under Sections 420 r/w (cheating) 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC for match-fixing in several Karnataka Premier League games in 2018 and 2019.

The BCCI’s intervention plea in the matter was allowed on Thursday by a bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi after amicus curiae Shivam Singh informed the court about the regulator’s plea for a hearing.

“That the prevalence of corrupt practices in cricket matches has an adverse impact on the game and undermines the integrity of the sport. The applicant is in recognition of such corrupt practices in the game of Cricket and to prevent the same had formulated and adopted an Anti-Corruption Code for Participants with effect from 18.03.2019.

“The BCCI has submitted that match fixing constitutes an offence under the IPC 318 Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 under Section 31 (420 IPC) and Section 318 (4) of the BNS...

“Thus, the act of match fixing clearly constitutes an offence of cheating, as it attracts all the ingredients of cheating, i.e., deception, fraudulent or dishonest inducement, intentional inducement to do or omit anything causing damage or harm. Therefore, the Accused can be charged for the offence of cheating under Section 415 r/w Section 417 of IPC (defining provisions of cheating),” the BCCI affidavit argued.