Court reinstates Srinivasan

(BBC) India’s Supreme Court has reinstated N Srinivasan as chief of the country’s cricket board.

He was forced to “step aside” in June after charges that his son-in-law and Chennai Super Kings team official Gurunath Meiyappan was involved in illegal betting in the IPL tournament.

Srinivasan, 68, was re-elected as board chief last month, but the court did not clear him to take up the post.

Srinivasan is widely regarded as the most powerful man in world cricket.

Yesterday, the court also appointed a three-member panel, headed by a former judge, to investigate allegations of spot-fixing and betting during the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 tournament.

“Srinivasan can take over as BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India] president, but we have also formed a new probe panel to investigate the case,” Justice AK Patnaik, one of the two judges who heard the case, said yesterday.

 

Srinivasan himself was not accused of any wrongdoing but he “stepped aside” temporarily as BCCI chief after his son-in-law was arrested.

Meiyappan, who was later released on bail, was the team principal of the Chennai Super Kings, the IPL franchise owned by Srinivasan’s India Cements company.