The Supreme Court bench headed by Justices J.M. Panchal and G.S. Mishra pulled up the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and has asked for grounds under which it allowed the BCCI President, N. Srinivasan to bid for IPL franchisee, Chennai Super Kings. A complaint was filed by former President of BCCI A.C. Muthiah questioning Srinivasan’s bid to which BCCI had replied that it was an autonomous body and therefore could not be questioned. 

Muthiah in his complaint had said, "that the award of IPL franchise of Chennai Super Kings to India Cements company was in breach of the cricketing body's rules prohibiting its office bearers from engaging in conflict of interest activities".

Muthiah has challenged the Madras High Court verdict which rejected his plea on the grounds of locus standi. According to DNA, a division bench of the Madras High Court had on March 24 declined to interfere with the amendment saying it found "absolutely no merit to interfere" with a single judge's order turning down Muthiah's plea to set aside the amendment. Earlier, Muthiah had approached the High Court alleging that the amendment was done to "favour" BCCI secretary Srinivasan and contended that the decision to exclude IPL and T-20 tournaments from the purview of the Board's regulation was "illegal and opposed to public policy." Muthiah had said that under the unamended clause, no administrator of BCCI could have, directly or indirectly, any commercial interest in the matches or events conducted by the Board and "the new regulation was brought in only to favour N. Srinivasan".

Muthiah has a high profile line up before the Supreme Court. Senior Advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Nalini Chidambaram are appearing on behalf of this former President.

BCCI was represented by Attorney General, G.E. Vahanavati along with his junior advocates, Naila Jung and Nishanth Patil, Anoopam Prasad and Rohit Sharma. Advocate General of Tamil Nadu P.S. Raman is also appearing on behalf of BCCI.

The Bench told the Attorney General representing BCCI that it could not take a position that being a private body it was not bound to take action on a third party's complaint when the amended rule was approved by all the members of the cricketing body.

Sify summarizes the arguments before the two Judge Bench and questions of Justice Gyan Sudha Misra. Justice Misra wanted to know how the process of amending the conflict of interest clause was initiated.  Justice Misra suggested that the BCCI could hold an inquiry into the complaint or go for arbitration. The Court said if the BCCI had replied to Muthiah's complaint, the Court would not have been burdened with another suit.

Attorney General Vahanvati said that the BCCI was an autonomous private body and not an instrument of the state. He told the Court that this position was supported by judgments of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. Vahanvati said Muthiah neither had a legal right in the BCCI that had been breached nor locus standi to feel aggrieved. Vahanvati countered the plea that under the BCCI regulations, Muthiah being an ex-president was also an administrator of the BCCI. He said that these provisions of the regulation had to be read in context of the provisions dealing with misconduct and indiscipline.

Advocate General of Tamil Nadu P.S. Raman defended the verdict of the single judge and that of the Division Bench of the High Court which had rejected Muthiah's plea.

India Cements promoter N. Srinivasan also has a powerful line up of counsels too. Senior Counsels  Rohinton Nariman, Mukul Rohtagi and Ranjit Kumar who were assited by their junior counsels Hari Shankar, Ninad Laud and Vikas Singh.

The Bench has only heard Muthiah’s counsels and is yet to hear the Respondents, India Cements and BCCI in length.