BCCI ethics officer dismisses SCA president’s application for recovering ‘wasted legal costs’

New Delhi, Jan 23 (PTI) BCCI ethics officer Vineet Saran has dismissed Saurashtra cricket chief Jaydev Shah’s application to recover “wasted legal costs” of Rs 9 lakh from complainant Sanjeev Gupta in a Conflict of Interest case.

Shah had written to Ethics Officer on June 8, 2021 that Gupta should pay the legal costs after his Conflict of Interest complaint against the SCA president was dismissed by the ethics officer on June 5, 2021.

However, in an order issued on Sunday, Saran did not find enough ground in Shah’s application to recover his legal costs from Gupta.

“In facts and circumstances of the present case, I do not find any sufficient ground for awarding of costs in a matter which had already been decided by then ethics officer (D K Jain) and where cost had already been prayed for earlier but was not awarded,” Saran said.

“No justification has been provided for awarding costs at this stage.”

Saran also rejected Gupta’s prayer for imposing legal costs on Shah for filing the application.

“Mr Sanjeev Gupta has also prayed for imposing costs on the Applicant (Shah) for filing the present application, which prayer is also not justified and is accordingly rejected. As such the matter stands closed,” he added.