MUMBAI, FEB 10: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) went on the offensive in the betting and match-fixing controversy afflicting Indian cricket, by slapping a Rs five crore defamation suit against Manoj Prabhakar and Outlook in the Mumbai High Court.Prabhakar had stirred a hornet's nest when he had alleged in an interview to Outlook that betting and match-fixing was very much prevalent in Indian cricket and he was personally offered Rs 25 lakh by an India teammate to ``perform below par'' and ``for sabotaging'' a match in Pakistan's favour in the 1994 Singer Series in Sri Lanka. BCCI president Raj Singh Dungarpur told The Indian Express : The BCCI has filed a defamation case against Manoj and Outlook. But I'm not in a position to say anything beyond that as I have yet to acquire the report from the solicitors."
Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud, the former Chief Justice who was asked by the BCCI to act as a one-man commission to probe into Prabhakar's charges, gave a cleanchit to the Indian cricketers.
In his 94-page report to the BCCI, Justice Chandrachud termed Prabhakar's charges as "imaginary and unrealistic".
In fact, he pulled up Prabhakar for refusing to substantiate his claims by disclosing the name of the teammate who had allegedly offered the bribe him.
The suit, filed by BCCI's secretary Jaywant Lele as the plaintiff, has Prabhakar as one of the defendants along with Outlook's owners (Hathway Investments Ltd.), president and publisher (Deepak Shourie), editor (Vinod Mehta) and its staff reporters (Aniruddha Bahal and Krishna Prasad).
The BCCI, which has filed the suit through well-known Mumbai solicitors Mulla and Mulla, has prayed to the court after paying court fee of Rs 75,000 that the defendents be ordered and decreed to jointly and/or severely pay to plaintiff:
1. A sum of Rs five crore with interest thereon at the rate of 18 per cent per annum from the date of filing the suit (Jan 28, 1998) till payment.
2. For the cost of the suit.
3.For such further and other reliefs as the nature and circumstances of the case may require.
The BCCI's working committee had been authorised to deal with the issue after Justice Chandrachud's probe commission had submitted its report.
For a brief while the Board toyed with the idea of appointing a three-member committee under Dungarpur to decide whether Prabhakar had "brought disrepute to the game" and, if found guilty, to withhold the benevolent found amount due to him from the Board instead of filing a suit.
The report, which also considered several managers'reports submitted to BCCI since 1991, also had statements made by Prabhakar, deposed Indian skipper Sachin Tendulkar, current captain Mohammed Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, wicket-keeper Nayan Mongia and India discard Sanjay Manjrekar besides former captains Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev.
Accounts of former managers Ajit Wadekar, D V Subba Rao, Sandeep Patil and Sunil Dev have also been quoted by justice Chandrachud in arriving at hisconclusion.
All the top players and former managers examined had categorically denied any incident of betting or match-fixing by players.
The BCCI has now gone in for litigation on the strength of the probe report.Meanwhile, Mr Lele told The Indian Express in Baroda that "it's the business of the BCCI to run the game in the country. It's not the business of Mr Prabhakar or Outlook."
Lele said that the figure of Rs 5 crore was arrived at by the solicitors of the BCCI. "We are not interested in the money, but they should apologise saying what they have written is false, or they should prove the charges, which they cannot do," he opined.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
