With a large number of 'corruptors' in cricket having links to India, a law on fraud in sport needs urgent debate

Rohit Mahajan

Match-fixing is no homicide or robbery, but is does kill the integrity of sport. However, under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), it’s not a crime — it’s merely a kink caused by greed, a corruption of the soul.

The Karnataka High Court has ruled that a case of corruption unearthed in the Karnataka Premier League (KPL) in 2019 does not constitute a crime under the IPC, “even if the entire chargesheet averments are taken to be true on their face value”.

In other words, match-fixing in India is not a crime — it “may indicate dishonesty, indiscipline and mental corruption of a player”, said the High Court, adding that the Indian cricket board (BCCI) “is the authority to initiate disciplinary action”.

“If the bye-laws of the BCCI provide for initiation of disciplinary action against a player, such an action is permitted but registration of an FIR on the ground that a crime punishable under section 420 IPC has been committed, is not permitted,” Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar ruled, quashing the chargesheet filed against cricketers CM Gautam, Abrar Kazi and Amit Mavi, apart from Asfak Ali Thara, the owner of the T20 team Belagavi Panthers.

In a judgement that makes for fascinating reading, Justice Kumar observed: “For invoking offence under section 420 IPC, the essential ingredients to be present are deception, dishonest inducement of a person to deliver any property or to alter or destroy the whole or any part of a valuable security. It is true that if a player indulges in match-fixing, a general feeling will arise that he has cheated the lovers of the game. But, this general feeling does not give rise to an offence.”

Offence

Is match-fixing just a misconduct, that too victimless?

Diehard lovers of sport don’t feel that. For many people, cricket died in 2000. That was the year when the biggest match-fixing scandal in cricket broke — there it was, the voice of Hansie Cronje, the highly-respected, very successful captain of South Africa, discussing fixing matches with a bookie. Delhi Police had stumbled upon Cronje by chance, for they were monitoring the cellphone of the bookie while working on a separate case.

The accusations and denials, the Justice Edwin King Commission, the inquiry, the confession — all were played in public. Cronje’s win percentage as captain in ODIs was a very high 71.73% — compare it with Steve Waugh’s 63.20%, Ricky Ponting’s 71.61% and MS Dhoni’s 55.00% — and him being crooked finished the integrity of the sport in the eyes of many.

India was shaken when Manoj Prabhakar alleged that former India captain Kapil Dev — then the national coach — had offered him money to ‘under-perform’ in a match in Sri Lanka in 1994.

More shocks were felt when Cronje alleged former captain Mohammad Azharuddin had introduced him to a bookie who offered him money to throw a Test match in 1996.

After an investigation by the CBI, the BCCI banned Azharuddin for life, along with Ajay Sharma. Ajay Jadeja, team physio Dr Ali Irani, and Prabhakar were banned for five years after the BCCI found they were involved with bookies.

But the ban on Jadeja was overturned by the Delhi High Court in 2003 and Azharuddin’s ban was revoked by the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2012. Two years later, a district court in Delhi cleared Sharma, and his life ban was removed.

It is obvious that the BCCI’s standard of investigation and punishment does not meet the highest judicial standards.

Sreesanth case

The absence of a law specific to match-fixing also hinders prosecution. For instance, after the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal, key accused S Sreesanth and others were prosecuted under the very stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) — because of the absence of a law to deal with fixing!

The charges could not stand in court — a Patiala House Court let off Sreesanth and two others, noting that there was not enough evidence to frame charges against them under MCOCA.

The BCCI life ban on Sreesanth was eventually removed in 2020.

And now comes the curious case of prosecution and exoneration of players in the KPL — the ruling that even if an offence was committed, it didn’t fall under Section 420 of the IPC.

The West has laws dealing specifically with match-fixing. In 2019, Sri Lanka became the first South Asian country to criminalise match-fixing. In June 2000, Steve Richardson, a key official in the anti-corruption unit of the International Cricket Council, advocated for a law on match-fixing in India, noting that a majority of cases under investigation had links to “corruptors” in India.

“At the moment with no legislation in place, we’ll have good relations with Indian police, but they are operating with one hand tied behind their back,” Richardson said.

The judgement in the KPL case bears him out.

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