Supreme Court Quashes Life Ban on ex-Ranji player Santhosh Karunakaran

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta held that the Kerala High Court had taken a very harsh view in rejecting the writ petition and the writ appeal preferred by Karunakaran on the purported ground of concealment of material facts, concluding that he had approached the writ court with unclean hands.

The appeal by Karunakaran took exception to the judgment of June 21, 2021, passed by the division bench of the Kerala High Court.

The appellant approached the High Court, seeking to assail the order of October 3, 2020, passed by the Ombudsman-cum-Ethics Officer, rejecting his original application on the ground that he failed to implead the District Cricket Associations despite clear directions issued in orders passed in 2020.

He also sought a direction to the Kerala Cricket Association to conduct elections by ensuring representation from each district under the Kerala Cricket Association strictly in conformity with the byelaws framed.

The writ petition filed by Karunakaran to challenge the order of the Ombudsman was rejected by the High Court and the division bench affirmed the order passed by the Single Judge.

After rejection of the writ appeal, the Kerala Cricket Association issued a show cause notice to Karunakaran under Section 15(4)(s) of byelaws of the KCA.

Karunakaran replied to the show cause notice on July 24, 2021. Thereafter, the KCA held a Special General Meeting on August 8, 2021, to discuss the action to be taken against Karunakaran.

By email of August 22, 2021, the KCA communicated its decision to blacklist Karunakaran from all activities and imposed a life ban on him, thereby disassociating him from the KCA and its affiliated units and forfeiting all his rights and privileges as a registered member of the TDCA.

Karunakaran raised a grievance before the High Court that the proceedings before the Ombudsman were absolutely non-transparent and he was never made aware of the orders passed in 2020 for the impleadment of DCAs in the original application filed by him.

In order to fortify his contention, he placed reliance on his e-mails addressed to the Ombudsman, requesting for copy of all records of the proceedings in the original application. The Ombudsman, by a response in November, 2020, denied the said request on the ground that the Ombudsman of the KCA is a persona designata and not a court of record and since the original application had been disposed of, the proceedings could not be provided.

After going through impugned orders and hearing the counsel, the Supreme Court said, Karunakaran had made out a plausible case to suggest that the proceedings before the Ombudsman were non-transparent and that the copies of the relevant records/orders were not provided to him.

"The documents and communications placed on record also suggest that many a times, it became difficult for the appellant and his counsel to address the Ombudsman during the proceedings of the original application because the virtual hearing gateway was frequently interrupted without any justification," the bench said.

The order of August 2, 2019, passed by the Ombudsman, observing that the impleadment of the DCAs may entail unnecessary delay, definitely gave rise to a reasonable belief to Karunakaran that he was not under any obligation to implead the DCAs in the original application filed before the Ombudsman. Otherwise also, the only prayer of Karunakaran in the original application was to frame uniform Bye-laws in sync with the recommendations of the Justice R M Lodha Committee, the bench pointed out.

"Thus, the application filed by the appellant was not in form of any adversarial litigation requiring the mandatory opportunity of hearing to the DCAs," the bench said.

Court, accordingly, quashed the orders passed by the High Court and the Ombudsman as well as decision of the KCA in blacklisting Karunakaran.

It revived the proceedings before the Ombudsman by issuing a direction that the application should be decided afresh within three months by giving an opportunity of hearing to concerned parties.