Kolkata: Tainted Indian pacer S Sreesanth continued his fight for the upliftment of the life ban imposed on him by the BCCI after the Kerala High Court on Monday issued a notice to the Vinod Rai led Committee of Administators and the administators of the board seeking their stand on this issue.
The notice was issued by Justice PB Suresh Kumar, who slated the matter for the next hearing on the 19th of June.
Earlier Sreesanth had challenged his life ban despite being aquitted of all match-fixing charges to which the BCCI had filed a counter affidavit in the court.
The affidavit said “the decision of the sessions court to acquit the petitioner from the criminal charges has no impact whatsoever on the decision of the internal disciplinary committee of the BCCI to ban the petitioner from playing cricket tournaments organised by the BCCI and/or its affiliates.”
The Board had said that the question before the session’s court was whether the petitioner ( and all the other accused) was liable to face penalties under the criminal statutes.
On the other hand, the board had said that the question before the Disciplinary Committee was whether the petitioner was guilty of gambling, match-fixing, corruption or violating the inter disciplinary rules of the BCCI.
According to the board, the quality of proof required to enforce punishments under a penal statute is much higher than the proof required for a disciplinary inquiry.
The BCCI refused to change it’s disciplinary decision with respect to these players- S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan even after they were discharged by the Patiala House Court in 2015.
As a result of the BCCI being adamant on it’s stance in not lifting the life ban imposed on Sreesanth, the right arm paceman has had to stay away from all levels competitive cricket. He had also struck a deal with a club in Scotland but the NOC ( No Objection Certificate) was issued by the Indian cricket body. The frustrated pacer thus moved to the Kerala High Court seeking justice.
(With inputs from www.crictracker.com and News 18)