- Citation: 95 (2002) DLT 14, 2002 (61) DRJ 639
- Bench: Justice M Mudgal
- Petitioners: Ajay Jadeja
- Respondents: Union of India
Facts of the case:
The respondents had imposed a five year ban on the petitioner [Ajay Jadeja] following the petitioner's alleged departure from such high standards, eloquently summarized by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. The case set out in the writ petition is that the petitioner is a professional cricket player, and since 1992 has regularly represented India in cricket. He also captained India in One Day Internationals in 1999, and played at a batting average of 37 in 196 One Day Internationals. In an investigation concluded in 1999 at the behest of BCCI, Justice Y. V. Chandrachud examined the allegations of betting and match-fixing in cricket and found that there was no match-fixing but the possibility of betting players was not excluded [pursuant to a FIR registration on 5. 4. in 2000], against some bookies and Hansie Cronje, South Africa's then cricket captain, and the revelations he made regarding match-fixing, a public uproar erupted in the nation and in the Parliament and, subsequently, at the behest of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, CBI investigated charges of match-fixing and associated malpractice related to the game of cricket. The CBI submitted its report to the Government of India. Thereafter the Board appointed Shri K. Madhavan, as the enquiry Officer, who summoned the petitioner, who appeared before him and submitted a representation refuting allegations in the CBI report, implicating the petitioner for fraternizing with bookies. Thereafter after a semblance of a hearing by the Disciplinary Committee of the Board, the petitioner was banned for five years by the order dated 5. 12. 2000 leading to the present writ petition. The order banning the petitioner has been challenged on the ground of lack of jurisdiction, procedural unfairness as well as on merits.
Judgment:
The court was of the opinion that, ‘BCCI has its own constitution and functions within its own rules and regulations. The petitioner has no legal right enforceable in a writ proceeding and the petitioner not having any contractual right, there could be no direction or a decree of a Court compelling the BCCI to select any player in the team and the concept of a 'zone of consideration' as in service jurisprudence does not apply in the present case.’ The court said that while a writ petition may be maintainable against a person/body which is neither State nor any instrumentality of State, the exercise of writ jurisdiction in such a case has to be carefully controlled. It is not for every dispute in the body is in service, intra member or election that a writ Court could and should interfere. The very potency and reach of the writ jurisdiction requires caution to be exercised and it is not meant to resolve all mundane and internecine controversies arising in such bodies. It is only when the impugned action infringes on a fundamental right or is so shocking and arbitrary so as to be unconscionable in addition to having wide ramifications of a public nature, that the writ Court may interfere. Since the body/person is brought into the ambit of the writ jurisdiction by the public nature of its duties and the public interest inherent therein, it must follow as a corollary that the action complained of also must be of such a nature which could affect public in addition to private interest in the wider sense so as to be amenable to writ jurisdiction.
The question whether the Court should nevertheless interfere in the facts of the present case is to be decided in light of the tests laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court for exercise of writ jurisdiction and the conclusions in the foregoing paragraphs of the judgment. The question whether the impugned action is sustainable cannot be a subject matter of the preliminary objection as to the maintainability of this writ petition, but would be a subject matter of the determination of the disputes on merits and the court had to determine whether the challenge to the punishment of 5 years ban can be looked and accepted in the light of the foregoing discussion. The court therefore, held that in view of the above discussion the application of respondents to determine the preliminary objection as to the maintainability of the writ petition was allowed and the preliminary objection raised by respondent to the maintainability of the writ petition was rejected.
