The Supreme Court has rejected the demand for a ban on calling the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) team as ‘Team India’. Terming the petition as futile, the court also reprimanded the petitioner. Calling it a waste of judicial time, the court also warned of imposing heavy damages on the petitioner.
In the petition of lawyer Ripak Kansal, it was said that BCCI is a private organization. It is not a government recognized national sports federation. BCCI does not even give public information under RTI Act. It is wrong to call the team of such an organization the Indian cricket team and allow it to use the national flag.
The petitioner had also demanded that the Supreme Court should order Prasar Bharati that the BCCI team should not be called the Indian cricket team on Doordarshan and All India Radio. On Thursday, January 22, the case came up for hearing in the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi.
The bench termed the petition as filed unnecessarily. Bench member Justice Bagchi asked whether more than one organization is running cricket in India? Is there a dispute between 2-3 teams about being the Indian cricket team? The court said that when there is no dispute then this petition has no meaning.
Chief Justice Surya Kant said, ‘It would have been understandable if the Government of India had raised this issue and objected to calling the cricket team Team India, but the government has supported and recognized BCCI from time to time.’ The court also said that the Parliament has passed the National Sports Administration Act. This will regulate all sports institutions.
The Chief Justice said that this petition was also earlier rejected by the High Court. The High Court should have recovered huge compensation from the petitioner for wasting his time. After this, the bench rejected the petition and said to impose a compensation of Rs 10 lakh on the petitioner. However, the court withdrew the compensation order on the request of the petitioner’s lawyer.
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