NEWS
OTHER SPORTS
DIARY
PEOPLE
MATCH REPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Dalmiya 'forced' to move court

Jagmohan Dalmiya, desperate to redeem his tarnished reputation before stepping down as International Cricket Council president next month, launched a blistering campaign against his rivals on Friday.

Dalmiya not only filed multi-million dollar suits against three publications, including the London-based Sunday Telegraph, for what he termed "defamatory" articles, but also began closed-door negotiations to sideline rivals in the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The 54-year-old Indian businessman has been accused of shady deals while awarding television rights for limited-overs tournaments in off-shore venues like Bangladesh and Sharjah. The High Court in Calcutta, where Dalmiya is based, restrained the Sunday Telegraph and two Indian weeklies, India Today and Outlook, from printing any article on the ICC president.

"There have been several articles in recent times against me which I have consistently tried to deny," Dalmiya said.

"It is normal practice to take the other side of the story, but in these cases I have not been given an opportunity to present my defence.

"We had served legal notice against these publications earlier, but the articles have continued, forcing me to move court," he said.

Asked if the Sunday Telegraph fell in the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court, Dalmiya said the court would not have accepted the suit if it did not have the jurisdiction.

Dalmiya, whose three-year term as ICC chief expires in June, will be replaced by Australia's Malcolm Gray during the governing body's annual meeting in London next month.

Supporters of Dalmiya, meanwhile, have grouped together to ward off any attack on him at the BCCI two-day emergency meeting in Delhi on Friday and Saturday to discuss the match-fixing scandal. Their target is former BCCI president Inderjit Bindra, who has alleged that Dalmiya - once a close friend but now a bitter foe - was "in the grip of sharks and mafia."

Bindra, a senior civil servant, has submitted a 360-page document, listing wrong-doings by Indian officials and cricketers, to the Central Bureau of Investigation which is probing the scandal.

Both sides flung mud at each other is successive press briefings, forcing current BCCI chief A.C. Muttiah to threaten members with expulsion if they continued to wash dirty linen in public. Muttiah is expected to table a code of conduct for officials at this weekend's meeting to douse the infighting.

"Officially, these meetings have been called to discuss ways to improve Indian cricket, but members will be told to improve their behaviour," a senior BCCI official said.

"In the war between Dalmiya and Bindra, the image of Indian cricket is being tarnished. If it goes on like this, there may not be any BCCI left," the official added.