India's Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Board of Control for Cricket in India to "place before it a list of administrators and players having various commercial interests," including in Indian Premier League and the Champions League, according to the PTI. The court sought the information when the BCCI "commenced its arguments to defend the controversial amendments in the BCCI rules to do away with the conflict of interest in allowing persons with multiple hats to work as a game administrator and own a team in IPL and Champions League." Before deciding to "peruse the list," a bench comprising Justices T.S. Thakur and Ibrahim Kalifulla observed "heavens won't fall if BCCI officials do not own teams." The bench said, "Give us the list of all contracts you (BCCI) have entered with administrators and others who have other commercial interests. What kind of contract you have entered into and with whom. Which of these administrators will suffer if the contracts are considered to be in commercial interest." The bench made the remarks after it was "not satisfied with the answer" of BCCI counsel C.A. Sundaram that "people who wanted to own a team that would not have come forward" if the rules without amendments were to continue. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for N. Srinivasan, said that "owning a team per se is not a conflict of interest." The bench asked the BCCI to "explain the background under which the controversial amendment was brought in the rules as there should be a justification that it was done in the larger interest of the public and that the Board has not faltered to maintain the purity of the game." The bench continued, "Whether you are a state or society, people in the country and world see your game on the assumption that it has played in a fair manner. That assumption is critical that if the game is unfair then nobody would follow" (PTI, 12/16).
