The Delhi High Court on Tuesday admitted an appeal by the cricket board against its earlier order holding that cricketer Ajay Jadeja's writ petition challenging the five-year ban on him for his alleged involvement in the match fixing scandal was maintainable. While admitting BCCI's revision petition against the single judge bench order stating that prima facie the board is an instrumentality of the state and court's writ jurisdiction under article 226 of the constitution could be extended to it, a division bench comprising justice Arun Kumar and justice R C Chopra said it needed to be heard in detail.
Stating that though it was not expressing any opinion about the status of BCCI, the division bench said the boar is discharging such functions, which have to be discharged by the state.
Whatever maybe the technical position, yes the board must consider that it is performing an all India function so far as management of cricket is concerned, the court observed. Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the board in his brief arguments, said the single judge bench order has been challenged on the grounds that BCCI is a registered society and no writ direction could be issued against it by the court under article 226 of the Constitution.
The single judge bench in its interim order on September 17 had said that Jadeja's petition was maintainable and needed to be heard on merit. The division bench, however declined to stay the order of single judge bench today and said the date for hearing the matter would be fixed later.
Bureau Report