Sundar Raman, Kundra deny Mudgal panel findings

Indicted by the Mudgal panel, IPL COO Sundar Raman on Saturday denied having any link with the cricket bookies and claimed that the person, with whom he was in touch, was a celebrity and TV star.

Raj Kundra, co-owner of IPL team Rajasthan Royals, on his part, offered to transfer his ownership rights in the team till he came out clean of the charges levelled by the panel.

The cricket administrator submitted before the Supreme Court that the panel, which investigated spot-fixing and betting during the IPL 2013, had not accused him of misdemeanour. “I am a man of integrity and cannot be involved in any wrong doing.

Careful reading of Mudgal committee report does not specifically say that I had knowledge the person concerned was contact of a bookie,” he said.

“The concerned person was a celebrity, a movie actor and also an acclaimed TV star. As IPL COO I had to deal with celebrities as part of my job. Celebs often call for ticket invited events. Such bonafide interaction cannot be basis of any misdemeanour on my part,” he said in his response to the panel’s report submitted in the Supreme Court. According to the Mudgal panel report, Raman knew a contact of a bookie and got in touch with him eight times in one season.

“This individual (Raman) admitted knowing the contact of the bookies but however claimed to be unaware of his connection with betting activities. This individual also accepted that he had received information about individual 1 (Gurunath Meiyappa, son-in-law of former BCCI president N Srinivas) and individual 11 (Kundra) taking part in betting activities,” the panel had said.

In its submission, the team Rajasthan Royals urged the court not take any adverse action against it on the basis of the panel’s findings against Kundra saying that he owned only 11 per cent stake in the franchise through his family concerns and not his own.