Supreme Court: Suspend Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings from IPL

The top court also proposed Sunil Gavaskar as interim President of BCCI in place of N Srinivasan.

NEW DELHI — The Indian Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Board of Control for Cricket in India to suspend Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings from the Indian Premier League.

The top court also proposed Sunil Gavaskar as interim President of BCCI in place of N Srinivasan till it gives final verdict in the matter. Any person associated with India Cements will not be involved with BCCI, said the court.

The Indian board have to come up with its response on its proposals tomorrow.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday urged Srinivasan to stand down while an investigation is conducted into illegal betting, saying his refusal to quit so far was 'nauseating'. A two-judge panel warned it could order the BCCI chief, regarded as the most powerful man in world cricket, to stand down unless he did so voluntarily as his continued presence in his post was hampering the investigation which involves his son-in-law.

The bench was looking at a damning report that it commissioned last year into wrongdoing in the IPL following a betting and spot-fixing scandal that rocked the domestic Twenty20 tournament.

The report, released in February, concluded that Srinivasan's son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan could be guilty of illegal betting on IPL games, in a major blow to Srinivasan who is due to take over as head of the International Cricket Council in July.

Meiyappan was the team principal of Chennai Super Kings, an IPL franchise owned by Srinivasan's India Cements company and captained by national skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The report, by a panel headed by retired judge Mukul Mudgal, suggested that Meiyappan may have passed on team information to outsiders for illegal betting, but did not specify what information or to whom.