Appearing for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), senior advocate C A Sundaram and Srinivasan's counsel Mukul Rohatgi argued in unison that the board president would keep himself away from the probe into the sealed cover charges made by the Justice Mukul Mudgal committee. They said the charges were not "so serious" to keep the elected president away from BCCI's functioning.
Sundaram, who was permitted to peruse the sealed cover charges in an earlier hearing, said the main charge against Srinivasan was that he had neither taken seriously nor acted on the 12 allegations brought to his notice against eminent cricketers.
"It is not such a serious charge to keep the man out of the functioning of the cricket board. Let there be a probe by BCCI suggested panel and please permit Srinivasan to resume his duties without going anywhere near the probe," he said.
A bench of Justices A K Patnaik and F M I Kalifulla, which had already disapproved BCCI's objection to the court entrusting further probe to the Justice Mukul udgal panel, said, "It is not what you (Sundaram) think it is. It looks very simple. But it is not that simple. We will not tell anything more. A panel comprising a retired judge and two eminent lawyers is saying please have a look at these charges. It cannot be as simple as you think."
The bench reserved order on the mode of further investigation into the sealed cover report submitted by the Justice Mudgal panel, also comprising senior advocates L Nageshwar Rao and Nilay Dutta, after the panel's counsel Gopal Subramaniam said Justice Mudgal was willing to take up the task if both BCCI and Cricket Association of Bihar consented to it.
While CAB's counsel Nalini Chidambaram promptly consented to Justice Mudgal panel being entrusted with the probe, BCCI registered its objection to the panel and accused it of wrongly recording the statement of Srinivasan and M S Dhoni to put words in their mouth about Gurunath Meiyappan's role in the affairs of Chennai Super Kings.
BCCI wanted the probe to be headed by retired HC judge Justice J N Patel, and assisted by cricketer-turned-commentator Ravi Shastri. The board promised to the court that it would take action against all those found guilty by the Justice Mudgal panel, including Meiyappan and Chennai Super Kings, but reiterated that mistakes in recording statements by the Justice Mudgal panel led to allegations that both Dhoni and Srinivasan had lied about Meiyappan's role.
Chidambaram dug out the statement of India Cements, which is the owner of CSK, before the Justice Mudgal panel stating that Meiyappan was a mere cricket enthusiast and had nothing to do with the cricketing affairs of CSK.
When both Rohatgi and Sundaram repeated their plea to allow Srinivasan to resume duty as board president, the bench said, "He had himself said that he would keep himself out of the board's functions till the probe was over."
The Justice Mudgal panel requested the court to allow it to take services of former CBI special director M L Sharma along with an officer each from Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai police along with an eminent cricketer in probing the charges.
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