Mukul Mudgal Panel Report & Sporting Fraud Bill 2013

In recent years, sports in India have been beset with controversy and sports administration has been getting murkier. The corruption tainted Commonwealth Games 2010 led to growing support for regulating and overhauling sports governance and administration in India. Recently, we faced huge embarrassment when our winter Olympic participants were denied of using their own country’s flag because the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) could not elect non-tainted officials to run the show. Even this embarrassment had not faded away; the Mukul Mudgal panel hit the country. In this study, we deal with the major recommendations of the Mukul Mudgal Panel report and salient features of the Prevention of Sporting Fraud Bill 2013.

Mukul Mudgal Panel Report

The Mukul Mudgal Panel was set up by the Supreme Court after the IPL spot-fixing and betting scandal came to light last year. It is a multi-member panel, headed by retired Chief Justice of Punjab & Haryana High Court. It recently submitted its inquiry report about the spot-fixing and betting scandal to Supreme Court.

We note here that Justice Mukul Mudgal has been associated with important judgements in sports, written a book on sports law, and helped draft the Sports Development Bill and Sporting Fraud Bill.

Background

The 2013 Indian Premier League (IPL) spot fixing and betting case arose when the Delhi Police arrested three cricketers, Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan on May 15, 2013 on the charges of spot-fixing. The three represented Rajasthan Royals in the 2013 Indian Premier League. In a separate case, Mumbai Police arrested Vindu Dara Singh and Gurunath Meiyappan, the CSK team official and son-in-law of BCCI President N. Srinivasan, for betting and having links with bookies.

Subsequently, BCCI banned all the three players for life from playing any form of cricket. Later in October, the Mukul Mudgal panel was set up by the Supreme Court to conduct an independent inquiry into the allegations of corruption against Gurunath, and Rajasthan Royals team owner Raj Kundra, soon after a two-member BCCI-appointed panel comprising a pair of retired judges had found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Gurunath and Kundra.

The Supreme Court took cognizance of the matter after the Cricket Association of Bihar raised charges of conflict of interest in the formation of BCCI’s two-member inquiry panel. A Bombay high court ruling later termed the probe panel “illegal”.

Key points from the report

The committee found Meiyappan guilty of both betting and passing on inside information. It said Meiyappan was betting through Vindu Dara Singh, who was in direct touch with the bookies. The panel also reported that Meiyappan had placed bets both in favour of and against his own team CSK. However, the allegations of match-fixing against him need further investigation.

The committee further concluded that Meiyappan was not a mere ‘enthusiast’ as claimed by BCCI President Srinivasan and that he was indeed a part of the Chennai franchise with accreditations suggesting Meiyappan a team official.

The report also states that “there are materials on record to justify an appropriate investigation to ascertain the culpability of Mr. Raj Kundra and his wife Ms Shilpa Shetty, in placing bets as owner of Rajasthan Royals in IPL.”

Along with the inquiry report, the panel also submitted an “explosive” confidential report on cricket’s state of affairs containing “unsubstantiated” charges made on the condition of anonymity by people of high repute about malpractices and their perpetrators. This report was submitted to the Court in a sealed envelope.

The panel has said that names of six “Indian capped” players are available in tapes in connection with dealings with bookies while two of these prominent capped players have also been named by former BCCI president IS Bindra. Also, one of the six players is currently a part of the Indian team.

Other Recommendations

The committee has made a number of other inferences and recommendations that were not connected to the terms of reference under which it was formed. They are as follows:

• The present measures undertaken by BCCI in combating sporting fraud are ineffective and insufficient. IPL governing body should be independent of BCCI.
• Players’ agents should be registered and should not be allowed to travel with the players
• Employment of players in franchise group companies should be avoided. Players should not have stakes in agencies involved in cricket. There is a need for stringent and effective control on Players’ Agents.
• Separate law, investigating agency and courts to deal with betting and match-fixing charges
• Law must be stringent like anti- terror and anti-drug laws
• Ban post-match parties where elements have free access to players
• List of undesirable elements maintained by BCCI should be circulated among players.
• Senior players with unimpeachable record like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, and so on should caution and advise the younger players against pitfalls of indulging in malpractices like betting and match fixing/spot fixing. Such interactions with legends of the sport might be the most effective and deterrent means of preventing future wrongdoing.

Most investigative agencies lament the fact that for detecting sporting frauds they lack the tools to know the names of bookies and the amount that has been bet. They can only use sources of intelligence such as phone tapping to detect fraud. These agencies have stated that legalizing betting would reduce the element of black money and reduce the influence of underworld besides helping them in detection of fraud and focusing their investigation.

Report Link

Prevention of Sporting Fraud Bill 2013

The Youth Affairs & Sports Ministry had drafted Prevention of Sporting Fraud Bill, 2013 and had released it in public domain last year. This bill defines the Sporting Fraud and contains provisions of penalty to the offenders and deals with the issue of Jurisdiction of Courts to adjudicate the matter, etc.

The main features of this bill are as follows:

• A person is said to commit the offence of sporting fraud if he, directly or indirectly:-
  • manipulates or tries to manipulate sports result, irrespective of whether the outcome is actually altered or not
  • deliberately misapplies the rules of the sport
  • removes or reduces all or part of the uncertainty normally associated with the results of a sporting event
  • wilfully fails to perform to his true potential, unless such under performance can be attributed to strategic or tactical reason deployed in the interest of that sport or team
  • discloses insider information
  • Fails to disclose knowledge of or attempt for Sporting Fraud

The bill makes provisions for maximum punishment of 5 years with a fine of Rs. 10 Lakhs or five times the economic benefits derived by the person from sporting fraud, whichever is greater.  The bill also makes provision that such cases cannot be tried by a court inferior to that of Metropolitan Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate of the first class.

Analysis:

The above bill has been called Antifixing Bill. Although, it cannot be passed now in its present form because the term of the 15^th Lok Sabha has ended, yet, such a bill is of dire need in India due to controversies involving the activities of the national sports federations, issue of match-fixing, spot-fixing, and illegal betting in Cricket.

The bill traces its origin to the IPL spot-fixing controversy that engulfed three Indian IPL cricketers. It took more explosive turn when Gurunath Meiyappan, reportedly the owner of the Chennai Super Kings team was interrogated for his role in sharing sensitive team information with accused bookies.

It was found that the present legal framework is limited to charge or prosecute alleged sporting fraud offenders. One reason of this was that we have inadequate penalties imposed via the archaic laws such as the Public Gambling Act of 1867. Another reason was that India did not have any law that governs the fraud in any sports.

Here, we note that Sports is a state subject under the 7th schedule of the constitution. But the role of the sports ministry is not limited to development of the sports only but also to improve governance and accountability parameters. But sports being a state subject, such bill will require the support of the States also.

The Prevention of Sports Fraud Bill, which aims to prevent and combat sporting fraud affecting the integrity of sports and fair play can be a path breaking legislation but its implementation is full of challenges. One of the major reasons is that sports in India is largely unorganized and unregulated and the principles governing the doping, ethics and fairplay are nascent. Despite a good intent, the bill is full of ambiguities and loopholes which would lead to confusion and misinterpretation. They have been discussed as follows:

• The Prevention of Sports Fraud Bill is first national legislation that attempts to check sporting fraud in India. But sports jurisdiction in India is at very nascent stage. The bill does not make provisions to educate the relevant people about the fallouts of the sports fraud. Without such education, it is practically impossible to implement the bill to attain its desired objectives.
• There is nothing in the bill that addresses the (unethical) activities that could happen accidentally or without intention. The outline of the offense of sporting fraud is vague as mentioned in Section 3 of the bill. It reads that offence of sporting fraud is where a person who “manipulates sports result, irrespective of whether the outcome is actually altered or not, or makes arrangement of an irregular alteration of the field of play or the result of a sporting event including its incidental events or deliberately misapplies the rules of the sport, in order to obtain any economic or any other advantage or benefits or promise of an advantage or benefits, for himself or for any other person so as to remove or reduce all or part of the uncertainty normally associated with the results of a sporting event.” Thus, if some player even slightly deviates from the normal rule of the play would fall within the scope of this section. There are no guidelines to assist to interpret this section.
• There is an ambiguity in the section 8 of the bill also. Section 8 is related to the offenses committed by companies. The bill reads: Where any offence punishable under this Act has been committed by a company, every person who at the time the offence was committed was in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for the conduct of the business of the company, as well as the company, shall be deemed to be guilty of the offence and shall to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.” If however a person “proves that the offence was committed without his knowledge or that he had exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offence”, then the person will not be liable to any punishment. We see that this is an ambiguous provision and would inhibit the involvement of the corporate in sports and leagues.

Thus, the bill in present form needs to be more refined to help ensure sports are cleaner in India.