BackLessons from Supreme Court’s rejection of BCCI’s probe panel
Perhaps a truly independent probe is the one thing an inquiry committee in India is rarely intended to be. Thankfully, the apex court was quick to realize that
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The emergent working committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) held a meeting on 20 April to select the members of the panel that would probe the allegations of betting and spot-fixing in the 2013 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Yesterday the Supreme Court rejected the three names proposed by BCCI—former chief justice of the Calcutta high court, Jai Narayan Patel; former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), R.K. Raghavan; and cricketer-turned-commentator, Ravi Shastri. Instead, it asked the Mukul Mudgal panel to continue the probe into the allegations against the former BCCI president N. Srinivasan and 12 others, including top cricketers.
This directive from the apex court is sagacious and something to learn from. What it basically means is that the court has finally decided to call the BCCI’s bluff about conducting a fair probe—into allegations against BCCI officials and against individuals contracted by the BCCI—by individuals hand-picked by the BCCI itself.
The Supreme Court, following the submission of the A.K. Mudgal committee report, had noted that Srinivasan, as BCCI chief, had failed to take effective action despite being aware of the spot-fixing allegations dogging IPL 6. In its latest directive, the apex court has carried forward the same logic that it had applied in asking him to step down from his post as the president of the BCCI so that a proper investigation could be carried out. And what is this logic? Yes, it has to do with conflict of interest—but that is just one part of it. The other part, which has become clearer now, is that it is foolhardy to expect the BCCI in its present condition—even with Srinivasan no longer officially in charge—to put probity above the interests of its erstwhile chief.
Last Sunday’s meeting—held at the Supreme Court’s behest—is an exemplary instance of this logic at work, for if there is one thing it proved beyond any doubt, it is that Srinivasan still has an iron grip over the cricketing body. There seems to be nobody within the BCCI right now who is both able and willing to take on Srinivasan—except perhaps the former BCCI president with a strong reputation for integrity, Shashank Manohar. But even he came a cropper against the pro-Srinivasan faction, which out-maneuvered him to pick the names that presumably suited their interests better.
Manohar was reportedly opposed to the inclusion of Shastri in the probe panel on the grounds of conflict of interest. He was right, for Shastri is a paid BCCI employee, a contracted commentator. Yet the name Manohar had proposed, that of former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee, was dismissed in favour of Shastri.
But Shastri’s was not the only problematic name. The other two were equally so. It has now emerged that Patel is related to interim BCCI chief Shivalal Yadav through marriage, while Raghavan, as the secretary of a club affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA), has voting rights in the TNCA, of which Srinivasan is the president. In other words, none of the three can justifiably be said to be outside the zone of BCCI’s (or Srinivasan’s) influence. How, then, could they be expected to be effective in an investigation where Board officials and individuals closely involved in commercial transactions with the Board are under suspicion?
This brings us to the other interesting question raised by the Supreme Court’s rejection of the BCCI-proposed panel: how do we decide who gets to be on such enquiry panels? Can we do such exercises a bit differently?
Human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover, speaking some weeks ago at a book launch in Delhi, wondered why is it that only persons who have some connection with the judiciary or the police or the government apparatus are picked to investigate a matter of public interest.
Grover argued that eminent personalities from any field who enjoy the trust of the public and are interested in a given case should be picked for such commissions of enquiry that are these days routinely set up either by the state or a private body to investigate something or the other. Supervising these investigations does not require extraordinary legal or detective skills—typically there would be specialized personnel assigned for that purpose—only common sense, and an independent, impartial mind determined to get to the truth.
Such individuals, who have a standing of their own in a field unrelated to the domain of the investigation, and a reputation to safeguard, would care more about their own credibility in the eyes of the public than about the blandishments of vested interests, and thus more likely to do justice to such an investigation.
Indeed, in the case at hand, none of the three members of BCCI’s probe panel needed to be a cricketer or a functionary from the criminal justice system. From this standpoint, Manohar’s choice—Chatterjee—was actually an excellent one, and it would have been interesting to know on what grounds it was shot down.
It does not really matter now, since the probe has already been handed over to Mudgal. But while we are on the subject of who should be on such panels, it is worth pointing out that there any number of credible, independent luminaries who follow the game closely, and would love to see cricket administration in this country cleansed of the rot corroding it from within. I do not want to take individual names—readers can come up with their own lists—but why couldn’t we have a three-member panel of, say, a sociologist, a theatre personality, and a film-maker to probe the IPL 6 betting and spot-fixing allegations? Or an economist, a historian, and a former hockey player?
The same rationale could be applied to any state-commissioned probe—be it into corruption allegations or allegations of state-complicity in a communal riot or any other misdemeanour or controversy with a bearing on public interest. If such a panel were to enjoy guaranteed access to all the evidence, and the freedom to summon all the witnesses they wish to hear from, there is no earthly reason why they would not do a better job than the usual suspects drawn from the same old league of former bureaucrats or former judges or former cops or former associates of the institutions under scrutiny.
Perhaps a truly independent probe is the one thing an inquiry committee in India is rarely intended to be. Thankfully, the apex court was quick to realize that it would be unrealistic to expect the BCCI to suddenly buck this tradition.
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