High Court begins hearing on Jadeja's petition

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Tuesday, September 10, 2002, 19:10 [IST]

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday began day-to-day hearing on a writ petition by cricketer Ajay Jadeja, challenging Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) five-year ban on him on match-fixing charges.

A Bench comprising Justice Usha Mehra and Justice R C Jain would also hear BCCI's appeal against the court's earlier order holding that Jadeja's petition was "prima facie" maintainable and a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking probe into the functioning of the BCCI in the wake of match-fixing allegations. A single Bench had earlier said Jadeja's writ petition was maintainable and needed to be heard on merits. This order, however, was challenged in an appeal by the BCCI on the ground that it was not a government entity and no direction could be issued to it by the court under Article 226 of the constitution. The said Article gives power to the High Court to issue any direction in its civil jurisdiction to government authorities. The single bench had held that since a team selected by BCCI represents the country, it was therefore performing the job of a government authority. Opening the arguments, Jadeja's counsel and senior advocate P P Malhotra said the banned cricketer was held "guilty" by BCCI on the recommendation of its legal officer K Madhavan's report which was based on CBI inquiry report, which the agency said had no "legal value". "CBI while submitting the report had clarified that its inquiry does not constitute any offence under law," Malhotra contended. Before submitting the report CBI had sought legal opinion on the validity of its report from former Supreme Court judge Justice Manoj Kumar Mukherjee and Solicitor General Harish Salve, who had stated that the charges of match-fixing did not fall under any category of penal offences, Malhotra said. The agency had taken into consideration the provisions of the Indian Penal Code, Prevention of Corruption Act and Public Gambling Act, but none of these could be attracted in the case against the cricketer, he claimed. Malhotra alleged that neither CBI nor the BCCI legal officer gave any opportunity to Jadeja to cross-examine witnesses on the basis of whose statement an "opinion" about his "involvement" in the match-fixing was formed. "Those statements were not provided to Jadeja to enable him to prepare his defence," Malhotra said adding "the CBI probe was only a roving inquiry which cannot form the basis for such an action by the Board against Jadeja." Under law and the principle of natural justice, a person has to be supplied with the statements of witnesses and also given an opportunity to cross-examine them about allegations made by them, Jadeja's counsel argued. He claimed the witnesses had not made any "specific" allegation against Jadeja and only referred to his meetings with certain alleged bookies. "Such vague allegations do not form any legal basis when pursued in the court of law," Malhotra contented.