Cricket match-fixing has serious ramification on country's economy: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said cricket match fixing has serious financial ramifications on the country's economy, while indicating to go deeper into the 2019 T20 Karnataka Premier League scandal.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh was hearing a plea filed by Karnataka Police against the January 10, 2022 High Court's order in the Karnataka Premier League scandal.

On January 10, 2022, the High Court quashed the chargesheet filed against three players and a team official in the KPL.

The High Court had said the match fixing scandal unearthed by the Bengaluru crime branch police in 2019 during a probe of corruption involving cricket players and team managements in the KPL T20 tournament did not amount to cheating.

Considering the matter on Tuesday, the bench said, this kind of betting has very serious financial ramifications on the economy.

"We are keen to go deeper into the issue. It has a very serious ramification in the economy. Today, we don't want to observe anything which would look like we are pre-judging the issue. But this kind of betting has very serious financial ramifications on the economy,” the bench said.

The court appointed advocate Shivam Singh as amicus curiae to assist it in the case.

The court noted Singh was good in sports law and has authored a book on the subject.

The court expressed its surprise to see how the matter came up for hearing after three years, in spite of the fact that the appeal of Karnataka government was filed in 2022.

The court directed the matter not to be deleted from the causelist after four weeks and sought an explanation from the registry for not listing the case.