The Supreme Court has set aside an order blacklisting and imposing a life ban on Kerala Cricketer Santhosh Karunakaran. The Court has now revived the proceedings on implementation of the Lodha Committee recommended Model ByeLaws in the Districts.

The appeal before the Apex Court was filed against the judgment of the Kerala High Court dismissing the Appeal filed by the former Ranji Trophy player.

The Division Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta stated, “...we are of the opinion that the High Court has taken a very harsh view in rejecting the writ petition and the writ appeal preferred by the appellant on the purported ground of concealment of material facts concluding that the appellant had approached the writ court with unclean hands.”

“Consequently, the decision of the KCA in blacklisting the appellant is also struck down and set aside. The proceedings of the Original Application No. 10 of 2019 filed by the appellant before the Ombudsman shall stand revived, it ordered.

Advocate M.F. Philip represented the appellant, while AOR Ranjith K. C. represented the respondent.

Factual Background

The appellant, a former Ranji Trophy player representing the State of Kerala and member of Thiruvananthapuram District Cricket Association, had approached the Ombudsman by way of Original Application seeking framing and implementation of a model byelaw in all the Districts of the State in terms of the model Byelaw recommended by the Lodha Committee and adopted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The Ombudsman-cum-Ethics Officer rejected this application on the grounds that the appellant failed to implead the District Cricket Associations despite clear directions issued vide earlier orders.

Pursuant to the rejection of the writ appeal challenging the Officer’s order, the Kerala Cricket Association issued a show-cause notice to the appellant under Section 15(4)(s) of the Byelaws of the KCA. On August 22, 2021, the KCA communicated its decision to blacklist the appellant 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 as a registered member of the TDCA. Aggrieved thereby, the appellant approached the Apex Court.

Reasoning

On a perusal of the impugned orders as well as the order of blacklisting, the Bench found that the appellant had made out a plausible case to suggest that the proceedings before the Ombudsman were non-transparent and the copies of the relevant records/orders were not provided to the appellant. The documents and communications placed on record also suggested that 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.

Reference was also made to an earlier order of 2019 passed by the Ombudsman, wherein it was mentioned that the impleadment of the DCAs might entail unnecessary delay. This fact gave rise to a reasonable belief in the appellant that he was not under any obligation to implead the DCAs in the original application filed before the Ombudsman.

The Bench noted, “Otherwise also, the only prayer of the appellant in the original application was to frame uniform Bye-laws in sync with the recommendations of the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee.”

“Thus, the application filed by the appellant was not in form of any adversarial litigation requiring the mandatory opportunity of hearing to the DCAs”, it added.

Striking down the decision of the KCA in blacklisting the appellant and allowing the appeal, the Bench ordered, “... the original application shall be decided afresh by the Ombudsman by passing a reasoned order within a period of three months from the date of submission of certified copy of this judgment.”

Cause Title: Santhosh Karunakaran v. Ombudsman Cum Ethics Officer, Kerala Cricket Association and Another (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 906)

Appearance

Appellant: Advocates M.F. Philip, K. Pramod, AOR Purnima Krishna, Advocates Karamveer Singh Yadav, Togin M. Babichen

Respondent: AOR Ranjith K. C., Advocates Manu Krishnan, Tarun Kumar

Click here to read/download Judgment


Justice Vikram NathJustice Sandeep Mehta

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.