Mumbai Indians’ Rohit Sharma plays a shot during the match against Lucknow Super Giants’ in the Indian Premier League 2024, at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. File photo
| Photo Credit: ANI
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Friday (January 10, 2025) informed the Bombay High Court that it would clear all its dues to Mumbai, Pimpri Chinchwad and Navi Mumbai police in two weeks’ time for providing their service of police protection during the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches.
The BCCI was responding to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Right to Information (RTI) activist from Mumbai, Anil Vedvyas Galgali on August 29, 2024. Mr. Galgali’s petition challenged the Maharashtra government’s decision to lower the police protection cost and waive arrears of police services provided to IPL T20 cricket matches respectively since 2011. The High Court in August 2024, had slammed the Maharashtra government’s decision to reduce the rate of police protection fees for IPL T20 cricket matches.
The petitioner alleged that the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) still owes ₹14.82 crores for police protection during IPL matches held at Wankhede and Brabourne stadiums between 2013 and 2018.
On Friday, the BCCI responded to the petition in an affidavit and said that it owed ₹1.7 crore to the Pimpri Chinchwad police, ₹3.3 crore to the Navi Mumbai police and ₹1.03 crore to the Mumbai police and said that it undertakes to pay these amounts within a period of two weeks.
“The BCCI has no intention of depriving the police of the amount owed to them and undertakes to make the payment of the disputed amount not later than 90 days of the reconciliation of the accounts with the concerned police authorities. BCCI only incurs liability for qualifiers, eliminators and final matches of the IPL, women’s premier league matches, and any other match conducted in exceptional circumstances,” BCCI said in an affidavit.
With this submission, the cricket board sought the High Court to dismiss the petition filed by Mr. Galgali as the question of charges levied for police protection for the cricket matches was a police decision, it said.
Mr. Galgali’s petition said that as per two Government Resolutions (GR) issued in the years 2017 and 2018, the organisers had to pay around ₹66 lakh to ₹75 lakh per T20 and One-Day International match and ₹55 lakh for a Test match held in the two stadiums. Through a June 26, 2023, circular, the State government had reduced the security charges from ₹25 lakh to ₹10 lakh for IPL organisers with retrospective effect and this decision by the State to waive the arrears was causing a loss to the public exchequer, the petition alleged.
The petition, which attached information obtained under the RTI, said the Mumbai police had sent 35 reminder letters to the MCA seeking to recover the outstanding amount of ₹14,82,74,177. The RTI also revealed that in the last eight years the MCA had only paid fees of ₹1.40 crore charged towards the IPL cricket matches.
In November 2024, the Maharashtra government submitted an affidavit that said, the decision of conducting these cricket matches was taken considering the financial benefits to the State exchequer.
The matter is posted for further hearing on February 11, 2025.
Published – January 11, 2025 09:29 am IST
