Ethics officer dismisses ‘conflict of interest’ complaint against BCCI chief
BCCI (Cricket Board of India) ethics officer Justice (Retd) Vineet Saran dismissed the conflict of interest case against Board President Roger Binny and said that there is no basis in the claims of complainant Sanjeev Gupta. Gupta, in his complaint, had argued that Binny’s daughter-in-law Mayanti Langer was working with Star Sports as the ‘anchor’ of Binny, which has a contract with the BCCI, creating a conflict of interest.
Star Sports is the official broadcaster of all ICC (International Cricket Council) tournaments including the Indian Premier League (IPL) and domestic tournaments of the Indian national team. Gupta, a former apex council member of the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA), has been lodging complaints against famous players of Indian cricket, including Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Virat Kohli.
Justice Saran, in his 11-page, 20-point report, dismissed Gupta’s complaint and also issued a stern warning to him not to share complaint related documents with “unrelated parties”. Gupta has a habit of emailing all his documents to hundreds of journalists, former and current BCCI officials. In the judgment uploaded on bci.tv, Saran said, “The case of the complainant (Gupta) is not that Mayanti Langer is involved in the sales, marketing, business or management of Star Sports. ,
“She is hosting live broadcasts and panels for Star Sports. The fact remains that media rights for BCCI and IPL were given to Star Sports on 5.04.2018 and 27.06.2022 and that too is not in dispute. “Therefore, it cannot be said that the respondent (Binny) as chairman helped his daughter-in-law to join Star Sports. Mayanti Langer is not even an employee of Star Sports and she is only working on contract as an ‘anchor’. ,
“Therefore, there is no conflict of interest anywhere in his dealing with Star Sports, so it cannot be assumed that there will be any conflict of interest,” Saran said. In fact, Saran also clearly mentioned that mere father-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship between Binny and Mayanti Langer is not enough to constitute a case of conflict of interest. Justice Saran also issued a stern warning to Gupta that he should send these complaints and documents only to the parties concerned and should not go into the public domain.
