High Court declines to put off IPL schedule

The Madras High Court on Tuesday declined to postpone the schedule of Indian Premier League Season 3 proposed to begin on March 12.

The petitioner, Hennry, earlier filed a writ petition seeking a direction to the Union and the State authorities to frame a set of guidelines and a code of conduct and evolve a mechanism to supervise, regulate, monitor and, if necessary, control IPL matches. Mr. Hennry, a filmmaker, said the Union government could no longer turn a blind eye to the “long-term and short-term evils” caused by IPL. In the interim prayer, he sought a direction for postponing the proposed matches in view of the Standard X and XII public examinations.

The court did not entertain the writ petition. It directed the petitioner to first approach the authority from whom the relief was sought.

In the present petition, filed through counsel T. Thiageswaran, the petitioner said that following the court order he sent a representation dated February 19 to the authorities. However, the Ministries had not taken any steps to postpone the matches. The public examinations had already begun. In the interest of students whose studies would be affected following the continuous live telecast of the matches, he sought a direction for postponing the matches.

In its order disposing of the writ petition, the First Bench comprising Chief Justice H.L. Gokhale and Justice V. Dhanapalan said the Ministries of Sports and Human Resource Development had to take a decision when such a representation was made. Citing a Supreme Court order, the Bench said the Supreme Court had spoken about the rights of every citizen or of aggrieved party.

The petitioner’s representation could not be said to be one which should not be responded.

The minimum that was expected was a decision on the said representation.

Source : The Hindu