New Delhi, April 16
The Supreme Court today made it clear that it would allow the BCCI to probe the match-fixing allegations against some players and officials of the IPL, instead of handing over the investigation to the CBI or a special team, only if N Srinivasan was kept out of the board.

A bench comprising Justices AK Patnaik and FMI Kalifulla asked the board and Srinivasan to choose between a probe by a special investigation team (SIT)/CBI and a BCCI panel, upon which the senior advocates appearing for the two sought time till April 22.

The bench accepted the plea for time to respond. The bench also allowed Sundar Raman to continue as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the seventh edition of the IPL being held for 47 days from today as it wanted the tournament to go on without any interruption. Earlier, the court had asked Sunil Gavaskar to take a decision on the continuance of Raman as COO. In turn, Gavaskar told the bench that he had long-standing relations with Raman and as such was leaving the issue to the court.

On March 28, the SC appointed Gavaskar and Shivlal Yadav as the joint chiefs of the BCCI as an interim arrangement after Srinivasan had agreed to step aside as the board president till he came out clean in the investigations into allegations of match fixing.

Srinivasan’s counsel Mukul Rohatgi today pleaded for re-instating his client as the BCCI chief as he had agreed to step aside under the impression that the SC had formed an opinion against him on the basis of the SC-appointed probe panel’s report on the allegations. But now it transpired that the committee’s report was based on the statements of an IPS officer facing allegations of corruption and others who had an axe to grind against Srinivasan, Rohatgi pleaded.

The bench, however, clarified that it had asked Srinivasan to remain out of the BCCI on the basis of a “separate confidential report submitted in a sealed cover to the court” by the probe panel headed by Justice Mukul Mudgal, who had retired as Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Srinivasan and 12 others, including cricketers, were named in the report.