After Ness Wadia’s drug offence, KXIP’s fate in IPL to be decided by BCCI
After Ness Wadia, co-owner of Kings XI Punjab, was caught in Japan in a drug-related offence, BCCI would be needing to contemplate the action to be taken against his Indian Premier League franchise. However, the officials are divided on what action is to be taken against the Punjab based franchise.
A court in Japan had sentenced Ness Wadia, the co-owner of Indian Premier League franchise Kings XI Punjab, in jail after customs officials found 25g of cannabis resin in his trouser pockets. Soon after, the Sapporo court suspended the sentence which means that it will not be implemented unless he breaks the law for the second time in Japan.
As per the protocol, a committee comprising of acting President CK Khanna, Treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry and acting Secretary Amitabh Choudhary will study the whole matter first. It will then be passed on to the Ombudsman Justice (Retd.) DK Jain, who also acts as the Ethics Officer, and he will take the final call on the action to be taken against the franchise. However, some reports have stated that the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) will discuss the issue on May 3.
No team official involved with the league can act in a manner which brings disrepute to the team, the league, the BCCI, or the game on or off the field as per the ethics code in the IPL constitution. There is also a clause which can lead to the suspension of the side, similar to what happened with Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals during the IPL spot-fixing scandal.
Some officials of the BCCI believe that there should be no bias and KXIP should be suspended as it happened with CSK and RR. However, it should be noted that Raj Kundra and Gurunath Meiyappan, previously co-owners of RR and CSK respectively, were involved in corruption with respect to cricket. Wadia’s offence, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the cash-rich league.