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BCCI president Roger Binny cleared of conflict of interest
The BCCI Ethics Officer saw no merit in the complaint that BCCI president’s daughter-in-law working as an anchor with Star Sports left him in a position of Conflict of Interest
The conflict-of-interest complaint against BCCI president Roger Binny was dismissed by the board’s Ethics Officer Justice Vineet Saran through an 11-page order.
The complainant Sanjeev Gupta had charged Binny of being in conflict because his daughter-in-law Mayanti Langer is an anchor with Star Sports, the media rights holders of the BCCI.
"It is not the case of the complainant that Ms Langer is involved in the production of, marketing, sales, business, or management of Star Sports. She is hosting live broadcast and panels for Star Sports. The fact that the media rights for BCCI and IPL were awarded to Star Sports on 05.04.2018 and 27.06.2022 respectively is also not disputed. Hence it cannot be said as the president, the respondent (Binny) has influenced the awarding of media rights to Star Sports,” the order read. “Ms Langer is not an employee of Star Sports and is only working on contract with Star Sports as an anchor. In the absence of any instance of Conflict of Interest having been cited in her working in such capacity with Star Sports, it cannot be presumed that there would be any conflict of interest or that provision of Rule (38)(1)(i) would be attracted."
The Ethics officer concluded that the burden of proof for making out a case for existence of conflict of interest was on the complainant, which he failed to illustrate. "...the mere existence of a relationship between the respondent and Ms Langer would not be sufficient enough to establish an instance of Conflict of Interest and that it will have to be demonstrated by the complainant that how does the said relationship lead to a compromise in respondent's participation, performance and discharge of duties," the judgement said citing the example of a similar case against Rahul Dravid.
“In my view, a liberal interpretation has to be given to the provisions of Rule 38 (1) and 38 (2) and not a strict interpretation,” the order said.
The Ethics Officer also issued a warning to Gupta, not to let documents related to his complaints out in the public domain to people unrelated to the case.
