A SUPREME Court panel probing a match-fixing scandal in the Indian Premier League (IPL) said today (February 10) the son-in-law of Indian cricket chief N Srinivasan was guilty of illegal betting on games.
The three-member panel, headed by retired judge Mukul Mudgal, said the allegations of fixing against Gurunath Meiyappan required further investigation.
The court had appointed the panel on October 8 to investigate the scandal that rocked the popular Twenty20 tournament run by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) last year.
The panel spent four months interacting with players, IPL team owners, the police, journalists, anti-corruption unit personnel and various other stakeholders.
The report, running into 170 pages and more than 4,000 pages of annexes, was handed to Supreme Court judges Ananga Kumar Patnaik and Jagdish Singh Khehar on Monday.
Meiyappan was the team principal of the Chennai Super Kings, the IPL franchise owned by Srinivasan's India Cements company and captained by national skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The panel dismissed Srinivasan's claim that Meiyappan was merely a cricket enthusiast, saying he was the face of the franchise.
Allegations of betting and spot-fixing against another IPL franchise owner, Rajasthan Royals' Raj Kundra, a Briton married to Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, needed to be further investigated, the report said.
The probe was separate from investigations by police, who have filed charges in court against a string of officials, players and bookmakers for illegal betting during the sixth edition of the IPL last year.
The panel's findings were a blow to Srinivasan, who on Saturday (February 8) was named the first chairman of the International Cricket Council.
There was no immediate reaction from him or the BCCI.
The IPL, which began in 2008, features the world's top players signed up for huge fees by rich business houses and individuals in a glitzy mix of sport and entertainment.
The players' auction for the seventh edition of the IPL this year will be held in Bangalore on Wednesday and Thursday (February 12-13).
