Court acts against Pawar and Manohar in perjury case

The Calcutta High Court has directed initiation of criminal proceedings against six BCCI officials, including the president, Shashank Manohar, and former president Sharad Pawar, for filing a false affidavit in a case of alleged perjury involving Jagmohan Dalmiya's expulsion from the Indian board.

Dalmiya, a former board president himself, filed a case of perjury against the officials in June 2007 - the others are Ratnakar Shetty (chief administrative officer), Niranjan Shah (former secretary), N Srinivasan (current secretary) and Chirayu Amin (vice-president) - for producing false documents in court relating to his expulsion in December 2006.

The BCCI had filed an affidavit - signed by the six officials - in the Calcutta High Court stating that the rule under which Dalmiya had been expelled from the BCCI had been duly registered by the Registrar of Societies in Chennai. Dalmiya then filed a case against the six officials alleging that the documents were false and were produced with intent to mislead the court.

Passing the order, Justice Nadira Patherya directed the Registrar (Original side) to initiate criminal proceedings under Section 195 of the Criminal Procedure Code (dealing with prosecution for contempt of lawful authority of public servants for offences against public justice and for offences relating to documents given in evidence), at an appropriate court.

The officials involved refused to comment, saying their lawyers were handling the issue. "I don't know what the exact decision is," Pawar said. "I have just heard of the decision. Unless I see the papers, consult our lawyers, I will not be able to answer."

The court order is the latest twist in Dalmiya's bitter and long-running rivalry with the current BCCI administration, against whom he has been fighting various legal battles since his expulsion in 2006. Apart from the perjury case, there is one being heard in a Mumbai metropolitan court relating to alleged embezzlement of funds during the 1996 World Cup. Those charges were levelled by the BCCI after Sharad Pawar took over as president in 2005. Dalmiya had used his casting vote to help his nominee, Ranbir Singh Mahendra, defeat Pawar in the BCCI presidential election in 2004 but Pawar won the next year.