New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to examine a contempt petition against Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Narayanswami Srinivasan, for allegedly presiding over a meeting of the cricket board, from which he was effectively disqualified by the court on January 22.

Besides Srinivasan, the contempt petition also sought action against acting BCCI president Shivlal Yadav and secretary Sanjay Patel for helping him chair the meeting to decide the office-bearers’ election, in defiance of the apex court’s order.
“Yes, the World Cup matches are also on, we will look into the issue,” a bench headed by Justice T.S. Thakur told advocate Vikas Mehta, appearing for petitioner Aditya Verma, secretary of the Cricket Association of Bihar.

The assurance came on Mehta’s appeal for early hearing of the matter to prevent Srinivasan from attending further meetings or making any effort to contest the polls. He made his plea at 10.30am, soon after the court assembled for the day.

The Bihar cricket board, on whose original petition Srinvasan was disqualified from contesting the polls because of conflict of interest, said in the contempt application that Srinivasan had on February 8 chaired a working committee meeting of the BCCI despite the apex court’s January 22 order.

“It transpires that in the working committee it was decided that the AGM of the BCCI will be held on 2nd March, 2015, when the first respondent (Srinivasan) will chair the meeting and election to the posts of office-bearers of BCCI, including the post of president, will be held as per the directions of this hon’ble court. It was also reported that the first respondent chaired the working committee meeting based on legal opinion,” the petitioner said, citing news reports.

By the January 22 order, the apex court had declared void a BCCI rule that allowed Srinivasan to simultaneously own an IPL team and run the cricket body. It ruled that Srinivasan and others having such conflict of interest would not be eligible to contest the ensuing election.

The apex court also appointed a three-member panel headed by former Chief Justice R.M. Lodha to impose suitable punishment on Srinivasan and others after giving them an opportunity to be heard in connection with the matchfixing and betting allegations. 

In its application, the Bihar board contended that because Srinivasan continued to have commercial interests in the IPL matches of BCCI, he stood disqualified from holding the post of president of BCCI and president of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association.