Mumbai, Jun 16 (Agency) The Bombay High Court on Wednesday set aside an arbitrator’s order that directed the BCCI to pay over Rs 4,800 crore to Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd (DCHL) regarding dispute pertaining to termination of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise team Deccan Chargers (DC). The BCCI had terminated the franchise agreement with Deccan Chargers Holding Ltd in September 2012, which was challenged by the Hyderabad team in the Bombay High Court. The court then appointed retired justice CK Thakkar as sole arbitrator in the case. In July 2020, the arbitrator awarded Rs 4800 crore in favour of the now-defunct IPL team.
Thereafter, the Indian cricket board expectedly challenged the arbitration award. On Wednesday, the single bench of the Bombay High Court, headed by Justice Gautam Patel, set aside the Retd Justice CK Thakkar’s award and stated that the INR. 4814.67 crore compensation for the non-existent Hyderabad team was illegal.
According to the Cricbuzz report, the BCCI was represented by Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta among others. Advocates Samrat Sen, Kanu Agrawal, Indranil Deshmukh, Adarsh Saxena, R Shah and Kartik Prasad were other advocates of the BCCI, which also had assistance from legal firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. The dispute arose when the BCCI, headed by N Srinivasan, terminated the contract of Deccan Chargers five years into their 10-year franchise agreement and awarded the Hyderabad franchise to Sun TV. Deccan Chargers – one of the eight founding teams of the IPL, which won the IPL in its second season in 2009, challenged the termination. Since Sun TV took over reins of the franchise, the name of the team has since been changed to Sunrisers Hyderabad.