Shukla, Jaitley meet Sibal, call for strong anti-fixing law

Rattled by the spot-fixing scandal that has shaken Indian cricket, IPL Chairman Rajiv Shukla and BCCI vice-President Arun Jaitley today met Union law minister Kapil Sibal, demanding that a strong anti-fixing legislation be "enacted as soon as possible".

Rattled by the spot-fixing scandal that has shaken Indian cricket, IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla and BCCI vice-president Arun Jaitley on Friday met Union law minister Kapil Sibal, demanding that a strong anti-fixing legislation be "enacted as soon as possible".

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"Today Arun Jaitley, who is a BCCI vice-president and the chairman of the disciplinary committee and I met law minister Kapil Sibal and requested that the strongest possible law should be made to crack down on match-fixing," Shukla told reporters after the meeting.

"We welcome the initiative. The strongest possible punishment should be given. We want a law to be enacted as quickly as possible because in the absence of a law, these people are taking advantage," he said.

"We will soon meet the sports minister (Jitendra Singh) because he also wants a strong law. We will request him that a law should be made," he added.

Indian cricket has been thrown into disarray because of the spot-fixing scandal which led to the arrest of three players, including pacer S Sreesanth, and several bookies with underworld connections.

The scandal has reached the doorsteps of BCCI president N Srinivasan with the Mumbai Police summoning his son-in-law and Chennai Super Kings Ceo Gurunath Meiyappan for questioning after his name cropped up during the interrogation of betting suspect and Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh.

Asked if Srinivasan should resign owning moral responsibility, Shukla said, "The (BCCI's) Ravi Sawani Committee is already investigating. Let him submit a report. The disciplinary committee will take a final view on it."

"Let the Mumbai Police submit its report on the matter," he added.